Statistics of international migration

This is the first issue of the Demographic Yearbook to feature international migration statistics as its special topic. Because procedures for the collection of migration statistics are the least developed and standardized in comparision with those of fertility and mortality (the two other basic demographic subjects), there is a greater paucity of available information on population movements between countries than there is on the fertility and mortality characteristics of national population and a greater lack of international comparability among the national data. At the same time, the phenomenon itself is of considerable importance because of the numbers involved and the possible effects of migration on both the country of immigration and that of emigration. It has therefore been considered appropriate, as an aid to the interpretation and use of the data presented in the special topic tables of this issue of the Yearbook, to consider briefly in the present text: (a) the needs for the data, (b) recent patterns of international migration, (c) major sources of the data and (d) national definitions of international immigrants and emigrants.

Related Subject(s): Population and Demography