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The Evolution of Global Bilateral Migration 1960-2000

Author : Özden, C., Parsons, C., Schiff, M., & Walmsley, T.

Acc. No: 282-S

Category: Soft Documents

Type of Resource: International migration, Migrants, Surveys

ISBN: English

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This paper presents global matrices of bilateral migrant stocks spanning the period 1960-2000, disaggregated by gender and based primarily on the foreign-born concept. Over one thousand separate census and population register records are combined to construct decennial matrices corresponding to census rounds for the entire period. In doing so, we provide for the first time, a complete picture of bilateral global migration over the last half of the twentieth century. The data reveal that the global migrant stock more than doubled from 76 to 159 million between 1960 and 2000. Quantitatively, South-South migration dominates the global migrant stock, constituting half of all international migration in 2000. In part, this is an artifact of the data, since millions of migrants were created overnight during the dissolution of India and Soviet Union. South-North migration is the fastest growing component of international migration however, and over our period the emigrant stock from Latin America surpassed those of both Europe and South Asia. The United States remains the most important migrant destination in the world, home to one fifth of the world's migrants and the recipient of no less than fifty of the top migrant corridors in the world. Migration in Western Europe remains largely from elsewhere in Europe and the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries emerge as important destinations for migrants from the Middle East and South Asia. Finally, although the global migrant stock is still predominantly male, the percentage of females rose significantly between 1960 and 2000.
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