| Code | SM.POP.TOTL |
| Indicator Name | International migrant stock, total |
| Short definition | International migrant stock, total is the number of people at mid-year born in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees. |
| Long definition | International migrant stock, total is the number of people at mid-year born in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees. |
| Source | International Migrant Stock, United Nations (UN), publisher: UN Population Division |
| Topic | Social Protection & Labor: Migration |
| Dataset | WDI |
| Periodicity | Annual |
| Reference period | - |
| Aggregation method | Sum |
| Statistical concept and methodology | Methodology: The basic data to estimate the international migrant stock were obtained mostly from population censuses held during the decennial rounds of censuses. Some of the data used were obtained from population registers and nationally representative surveys.
In the majority of cases, the sources available had gathered information on the place of birth of the enumerated population, thus allowing for the identification of the foreign-born population. In estimating the international migrant stock, international migrants have been equated with the foreign-born whenever possible. In most countries lacking data on place of birth, information on the country of citizenship of those enumerated was available and was used as the basis for the identification of international migrants, thus effectively equating international migrants with foreign citizens.
For countries or areas for which no information was available on the international migrant stock, the estimates were imputed. |
| Development relevance | Movement of people, most often through migration, is a significant part of global integration. Migrants contribute to the economies of both their host country and their country of origin. Yet reliable statistics on migration are difficult to collect and are often incomplete, making international comparisons a challenge.
Global migration patterns have become increasingly complex in modern times, involving not just refugees, but also millions of economic migrants. In most developed countries, refugees are admitted for resettlement and are routinely included in population counts by censuses or population registers. But refugees and migrants, even if they often travel in the same way, are fundamentally different, and for that reason are treated very differently under modern international law. Migrants, especially economic migrants, choose to move in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their families. Refugees have to move if they are to save their lives or preserve their freedom. |
| Limitations and exceptions | In deriving the estimates, an international migrant was equated to a person living in a country other than that in which he or she was born. That is, the number of international migrants, also called the international migrant stock, would represent the number of foreign-born persons enumerated in the countries or areas constituting the world. However, because several countries lack data on the foreign-born, data on the number of foreigners, if available, were used instead as the basis of estimation. Consequently, the overall number of migrants in world regions or at the global level do not quite represent the overall number of foreign-born persons.
The disintegration and reunification of countries causes discontinuities in the change of the international migrant stock. Because an international migrant is equated with a person who was born outside the country in which he or she resides, when a country disintegrates, persons who had been internal migrants because they had moved from one part of the country to another may become, overnight, international migrants without having moved at that time. Such changes introduce artificial but unavoidable discontinuities in the trend of the international migrant stock. The reunification of States also introduces discontinuities, but in the opposite direction.
World aggregates are computed by the World Bank and include economies covered by the World Development Indicators. Therefore, the world total figures or world averages may differ from those published by the United Nations Population Division (UNPD).
The proportion of international migrant stock (SM.POP.TOTL.ZS) is calculated by the UNPD using UNPD’s total population data, which may differ from the total population data in the World Development Indicators (WDI). Consequently, the number of international migrant stock (SM.POP.TOTL) may not match the result obtained by multiplying the total population in the WDI by the proportion of international migrant stock (SM.POP.TOTL.ZS). |
| License URL | https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/public-licenses#cc-by |
| License Type | CC BY-4.0 |
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