Indirectly Estimating International Net Migration Flows by Age and Gender

Abstract

Although data for the total number of international migrant flows is now available, no global dataset concerning demographic characteristics, such as the age and gender composition of migrant flows, exists. This article reports on the methods used to generate the CDM-IM dataset of age- and gender-specific profiles of bilateral net (not gross) migrant flows. The researchers employ raw data from the United Nations Global Migration Database and estimate net migrant flows by age and gender between two time points around the year 2000, accounting for various demographic processes (fertility, mortality). The dataset contains information on 3,713 net migrant flows. Validation analyses against existing datasets and the historical, geopolitical context demonstrate that the CDM-IM dataset is of reasonably high quality.

Keywords:

• age
• bilateral net migrant flows
• database
• gender
• international net migration

Notes

1. Unfortunately, the UNGMD does not provide sufficient migrant stock data to use our methodology to estimate detailed net migration flow profiles for India, Indonesia, and Rest of Eastern Asia (North Korea, Mongolia) as destinations. However, we do estimate net migrant profiles for those regions as origins. These countries either provide no detailed age profiles for their migrant stock data (e.g., India, Mongolia), have detailed gender and age profiles but only for one year (e.g., Indonesia), or there are simply no migrant stock data recorded (e.g., North Korea). Since our methodology of computing net migrant flows requires age- and gender-specific migrant stock data for a minimum of two time points, we were unable to compute net migrant flows for these countries as destinations.

2. We assume that a bilateral net flow between origin country “A” and destination country “B” can be measured by an increase/decrease of the stock of people of country “A” residing in country “B.” However, it is possible that the change in the stock of “A”s residing in “B” is the result of a movement of “A”s that were living in a third country “C” to “B” and not from a direct move from “A” to “B.”