Migrants Count: Five Steps Toward Better Migration Data
Publication Info
Publication Type
Download
Initiative
CGD Expert
Articles
- Think Again: Brain Drain (ForeignPolicy.com)
- CGD Migration Data Report Card
- Migration Statistics: Our Biggest Weak Spot (Reuters)
- Canada Beats U.S. in Knowledge of Newcomers (Toronto Star)
- Blue-Ribbon Panel Urges Five Steps to Better Migration Data -- Starting with Census (Press Release)
- Immigrants are an Engine of Prosperity (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
- CGD Launches Commission on Migration Data
- Migration Talk: Making Sense of a World on the Move
- Migration and Development: Temporary Workers are Key
- Letters to The Editor: America's Nurses, And The World's (New York Times)
- Migration and Development: Q&A with Michael Clemens
Events
- Brain Drain or Gain: Examining International Migration
- Effects of Migration on Developing Countries: Explaining Labor Market Inactivity in Migrant-Sending Families
- Should I Stay or Should I Go: Geographic versus cultural networks in migration and (un)employment
- Internal Migration and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania: Evidence from a Long-Term Tracking Survey
- International Migration in the Long-Run: Positive Selection, Negative Selection and Policy
Multimedias
- The Biggest Idea in Development that No One Really Tried (video)
- Beyond the Fence (event)
- Michael Clemens Presents New Ideas for Migration
- Migration and Development (Interview)
Rights and Permissions
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Commission on International Migration Data for Development Research and Policy
05/25/2009
Those who migrate from relatively poor countries to relatively rich countries improve their well-being and their family's well-being, and new analyses are showing that such migration also benefits the communities and countries they leave behind. But what the research also shows is an extensive lack of good data—a lack that has stunted global understanding and domestic political discourse on a critical development issue.
In this CGD report, the Commission on International Migration Data for Development Research and Policy presents their five recommendations to remedy the lack of good data on migration and its effects on development. The recommendations are politically and technically practical and would allow countries to greatly improve their migration data at low cost, and with existing mechanisms:
Ask basic census questions and make the data publicly available.
Compile and release existing administrative data.
Centralize Labor Force Surveys.
Provide access to microdata, not just tabulations.
Include migration modules on more existing household surveys.
Download the report (PDF)
Read the Migration Data Report Card
(not a product of the commission)