INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION ESTIMATES USING DIFFERENT LENGTH OF STAY DEFINITIONS

Michel POULAIN

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION ESTIMATES USING DIFFERENT LENGTH OF STAY DEFINITIONS

• How migration is defined as far as the time criterion is concerned directly affects the size of the estimate produced. A broader definition of migration based on a shorter minimal duration of stay will consider more moves as migrations.

• The UN recommendations on international migration statistics (Revision 1, UN 1998) include the following definition : an international migrant is defined as any person who changes his or her country of usual residence. The country where the person lives, that is to say, the country in which the person normally spends the daily rest.

UN recommended definitions• Long-term migrant A person who moves to a country

other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least a year (12 months), so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new country of usual residence. From the perspective of the country of departure, the person will be a long-term emigrant and from that of the country of arrival the person will be a long-term immigrant.

• Short-term migrant A person who moves to a country

other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least 3 months but less than a year (12 months).

Consistency between flow and stockThe Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population

and Housing (UN, 2006) provided criteria for persons to be enumerated that are consistent:

Only those persons: a) who have lived in their place of usual residence for a continuous period of at least twelve months before Census Day; orb) who have arrived in their place of usual residence during the twelve months before Census Day with the intention of staying there for at least one year

should be considered as usual residents of the relevant geographic or administrative subdivision.

Changes in the recommendations

As conclusion of these international recommendations the most important time criterion is the 12 months’ rule to identify a long-term international migrant while the 3 months’ rule is the base to identify short-term international migrant. An important change appeared in the 1998 revised recommendations compared with the previous ones (1980): the time criterion “more than one year” has been replaced by “at least one year” for the definition of long-term migrant and the 3 months criterion for the minimal stay of short-term migrant has been introduced.

Five types of data collection1. Self-reported information on duration of stay in

the country collected through specific questions asked in census, general survey like LFS or other more specific surveys;

2. Self-reported intended duration of stay or absence recorded when crossing national border crossing obtained through administrative border control or border survey;

3. Registrations of persons coming from abroad and deregistrations of those leaving for abroad in the population registration system based on their intention and following specific administrative rules including or not a time criterion;

Five types of data collection (cont.)4. Ex-post calculation of the duration of stay or

absence based on administrative records of border crossing or administrative registration and deregistration in the population registration system and obtained by linking the current move or (de)registration with the previous one;

5. Duration of validity of residence permit (cumulated duration for the first and renewed permits) for foreigners needing such permit in order to reside in a foreign country more than 90 days.

Results

• Within this study, the impact of the two UN recommended migration definitions has been investigated. As is already well known, using a broader definition of migration, with a shorter time threshold, inevitably results in larger estimated flows. However, the relative losses between the two definitions investigated, 3 and 12 months, vary largely between countries.

Results (cont.)• This investigation confirms the difficulty to

ensure the comparability of international migration statistics at international level. Not only do the data sources differ from country to country, but also the time criterion applied in order to identify international migrants and the way statistical data are processed afterwards are different. The investigation demonstrated that, even with the support of detailed metadata, the strict comparability of data available on international migration is hard to ensure.

Results (cont.)

• Information based on intention is different from that computed ex-post based on border control. Total duration of validity of residence permits could over-estimate the de facto duration of stay and, in some cases, under-estimate it. When the duration is based on registration and deregistration in administrative databases, applied administrative rules differ between countries. Moreover, the strict application of these rules is far from being achieved in all countries.

Results (cont.)

• For countries considering the date of expiry of non-renewed residence permits as end of a period of stay, peaks for exact duration are observed at 3 and 12 months. The same problem emerges for intended durations of stay or absence that are rounded to exactly 12 months. Accordingly an important question emerges that is related to the inclusion or not of these persons in short-term or long-term immigrants.

Duration of stay for immigrants

Results (cont.)

• The Task Force recommends that in countries where such peaks emerge a careful evaluation be made of: (i) the relation between duration of validity of permits and actual duration of stay or (ii) the relation between intended duration of stay or absence and actual durations.

Results (cont.)• National expert knowledge or/and ad hoc

scientific investigations may help in allocating these specific groups of international migrants (those with exactly 12 months validity of their residence permit and those who intend to stay abroad or in the country for exactly 12 months) to either of the two categories of short-term and long-term migrants.

Results (cont.)The conclusion of our investigation is that:The recommended international definitions

need to be interpreted and applied at national level but the national statistical authorities are best placed to do this, based on the specific national situation, and on the availability and operation of the data sources available in that country.

Short-term migration and circular migration

• The existing definition of short-term migration based on a stay of at least 3 months but less than 12 months corresponds closely with the 90 day threshold used in many countries to define whether a stay can be covered by a visitor visa or whether a residence permit is required.

• A topic of growing importance is circular migration

(EMN 2011). Circular migration is defined by the EMN Glossary as “a repetition of legal migrations by the same person between two or more countries”.

Short-term migration and circular migration (cont.)

• Circular migration is badly captured by official statistics and often ignored – therefore the scale of circular migration is difficult to estimate.

• By its nature circular migration is particularly difficult to measure as short-term residence may be subject to little or no administrative recording.

• Innovative methodologies will need to be examined and applied in order to better capture circular migration in official statistics.

Circular migration (cont.)

• It is important that the existing definitions of short-term and long-term migration, as well as any new definitions relating to circular migration, should be implemented in a coherent and consistent way.

• Therefore, the Task Force recommends preparing a proposal for a common international statistical definition of circular migration.

Circular migration (cont.)

• This definition should take into account the needs expressed by key statistics users for information on circular migration, as well as any available data from ad hoc studies into this phenomenon. Circular migration may need to be defined in terms both of duration of stay and a repetition of the change in place of usual residence. The potential implications on other population statistics concepts of this circular migration definition will need to be considered.

A more general recommendation

• More generally, the Task Force recommends preparing guidelines to facilitate the implementation by member countries of the internationally recommended definitions at national level. These guidelines should build upon the national practices providing examples of how the international definitions of place and change of usual residence are actually applied to available national data sources.

A more general recommendation (…)• It may be proposed, for example, that the

criterion of "living continuously for at least the last 12 months" might, in practical application, be replaced by the concept of "living for most of the last 12 months”. However, it will be for the national statistical authorities to apply these guidelines as they think best, taking into account national circumstances, with the overall aim being to ensure that the data correspond as closely as possible to the existing international definitions.

An emergency message from CBS• In the Netherlands we use another definition for

immigrants and emigrants. An immigrant is a person who intends to stay in the Netherlands for a period of at least four months. Emigrants are defined as persons who intend to stay abroad for at least eight months. Therefore Statistics Netherlands have to revise their migration data in order to comply with the EU-regulation. We are still figuring out what should be the best way to do this.

• The Netherlands is not the only country in the EU with a different migrant-definition than stated in the EU-regulation. How other countries are solving these difficulties ? And finally, to what extent does the revised statistics for Eurostat differ from the statistics according to national practices?

Facing the challenge: the actors Migrant behaviour

Statistical Office

National Rules International comparability

Facing the challenge: the priorities

• First priority: policy support and accordingly our statistics should be reliable (not necessarily accurate), produce timely and cover topics currently discussed in the field of international migration. Trends are more relevant than levels for policy support.

• Second priority: Consistency between stock and flow.

• Third priority: international comparability

The most problematic topics today • Emigration flows and emigrant stock/diaspora and

return migration

• Circular migrants and their impact on both sending and receiving countries but also at internal level between rural and urban areas

• Socio-economic, educational and cultural characteristics of migrants

Thanks

and let’s go ahead !