The patterns and trends in global international migration flows since 1990: a revisit with new data and methods

Nikola Sander1, Phil Rees2 & Guy Abel1

1Wittgenstein Centre | Vienna Institute of Demography
2University of Leeds
European Population Conference, June 2014
View the slides at http://nikolasander.github.io/epc2014

Global migration has accelerated and diversified!

In the age of globalisation, migration has become:

Limited empirical testing of these assumptions!

Largely due to a lack of global flow data.

So, what data are available on global migration flows?

Most widely available are data on migrant stocks

Captured in censuses, registers and surveys

Comparing country of birth with country of current residence

An accumulative measure of migration over several decades that cannot capture contemporary trends

Migrant flow data much less widely available

Censuses only capture inflows, registers use varying definitions

Harmonisation exist for European flows (IMEM)

Outside Europe only unharmonised data for selected countries

International migration ↭ Internal migration

Studies on international migration focus on migration systems, gravity models and net migration.

King & Skeldon (2010): Mind the Gap! Integrating Approaches to Internal and International Migration

Literature on the spatial structure of internal migration

Research Question:

Has migration indeed become more intense, less spatially focussed and less unidirectional?

Bridging the gap by applying new migration flow estimates to indicators proposed for internal migration.

Estimating flows from stocks

UN bilateral stock data

lifetime transitions

1990, 2000, 2010

more than 200 countries

New global flow estimates

5-year transitions

1990-95 to 2005-10

196 countries

Migration within and between world regions in
1990-1995

Migration within and between world regions in
1995-2000

Migration within and between world regions in
2000-2005

Migration within and between world regions in
2005-2010

Our interdisciplinary approach:

Applying five measures put forward by Bell et al.(2002) to capture four key dimensions of spatial structure:

Intensity: Total migrants; Crude Migration Rate

Connectivity: Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Impact: Migration Effectiveness Index (MEI)

Distance: Median distance moved

Bell et al.(2002): Cross-national comparison of internal migration: issues and measures. // Internal Migration Around the Globe (IMAGE) Project
Intensity:
Total migrants in mio.
Impact:
Migration Effectiveness Index
Intensity:
Crude migration rate
Distance:
Median distance in km
Connectivity:
Coefficient of Variation

Intensity: Crude migration rate

North America
Latin America
Europe
Fmr Soviet Union
West & South Asia
East & SE Asia
Africa

Connectivity: Coefficient of Variation

Connectivity: Coefficient of Variation

North America
Latin America
Europe
Fmr Soviet Union
West & South Asia
East & SE Asia
Africa

Impact: Migration Effectiveness Index

Impact: Migration Effectiveness Index

North America
Latin America
Europe
Fmr Soviet Union
West & South Asia
East & SE Asia
Africa

Conclusions

New estimates of global migration flows can be downloaded from the Science website.

→ e.g. for exploratory analysis and global population projections.

In 1990-95 the spatial structure was quite distinctive.

Overall, migration has not become more intense.

The spatial focussing of flows has not universally decreased.

The impact of migration did not decrease continuously, but shows strong regional variation.

"The Global Flow of People" www.global-migration.info




Further details


Guy Abel & Nikola Sander (2014): Quantifying Global International Migration Flows. Science, Vol. 343, pp.1520-22.


Interactive data visualisation"The Global Flow of People"


Thanks to Elin Charles-Edwards and the IMAGE Project Team for their help with calculating the global indices!


Contact

nikola.sander@oeaw.ac.at

@nikolasander

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