Demographics and Migration

The focus of the Demography and Development project is on immigration from poor countries to richer ones and to a lesser extent to other poor countries. In 2005 approximately 60 million people migrated from a less developed country to a more developed one, roughly the same number that migrated from one less developed country to another less developed one.

The annual immigration rate to the United States reached its peak in the 1900s at 11.6 per 1,000 population falling to 0.4 per 1,000 and then rising again to 4 per 1,000 in the 1990s with the actual number of immigrants to the US estimated to be about one million per year, the highest ever. This number, however, is less than the number of immigrants to western and southern Europe, which is now absorbing immigrants from the populous regions of Asia, the Middle East and to a lesser extent, Africa. Western Europe also absorbs growing numbers of immigrants from the former Soviet republics.

To learn more, visit CGDs research page on migration, which includes a dyanamic data presentation.

Demographics and Migration will be the focus of our April 2009 lecture, Brain Drain or Gain? Examining International Migration, by David McKenzie, Senior Economist, World Bank. For current information on lecture dates, times and locations, and to RSVP, see the Lecture Series Overview.

Demographics and Development in the 21st Century