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Migration statistics

Review paper by the United States Census Bureau with IMF and World Bank

In-depth review on migration statistics
The Bureau reviewed migration statistics in February 2005 with the purpose to support the implementation of the United Nations’ 1998 Recommendations on Statistics of International Migration and find ways to improve the comparability of migration data.
The Bureau set up a

Steering Group on migration statistics to prepare a programme of work and develop a clearing house on migration statistics.
Outcome of the review
A

CES seminar on measuring population movement and integration in a globalized world was held at the Conference in June 2008.

Several task forces have been working under the guidance of the Steering Group.
As a result, in 2015, UNECE published a Guide to Measuring Change in the Socio-Economic Conditions of Migrants, and in April 2016 the Conference will review the Guidelines on Circular Migration.
In June 2012, the Conference discussed the final report by the Task Force with recommendations on Analysis of international migration estimates using different length of stay definitions.
The Suitland Group produced a number of papers on methods of producing migration statistics, for instance a paper on Measuring hard-to-count migrant populations Eurostat’s PROMINSTAT database as a repository for migration-related survey questions.
In 2011, UNECE launched a new, regularly updated Clearinghouse on migration statistics  allowing countries to improve their emigration data by using immigration data from other countries.
In June 2009, the Conference endorsed the Guidelines for Exchanging Data to Improve Emigration Statistics
Related initiatives
In April 2014, a CES seminar discussed the challenges in migration statistics.
A related initiative of labour mobility and globalization was discussed at the June 2015 CES plenary session. The Conference supported establishing a Task Force on measuring labour mobility and globalization.
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This page was last updated on: 19 November 2015