Info Series
#7 Info Series: What are “Migratory Movements”?
We discuss how migratory movements are defined, measured and categorised, as well as why we need to focus on mixed migratory movements.
When societies talk about people on the move, the issue is often conceptualised in terms of numbers of people moving from one place to another. Whether through terms like “migrant surge” and “mass migration” or the discussions on “migration management” and the extent of the humanitarian crisis, we have a tendency to quantify the movement of people. This does not exclude us at Josoor: for example, we recently did an Info Series on the myth that most people flee to “Western” countries, in which we looked at numbers in the UNHCR “Report on Global Trends of Forced Displacement”.
Whether we are using data from this report or any other sources, the numbers we are talking about are what is known as “migratory movements” and experts commonly call “migration flows''. Throughout this blog we will be using the term “migratory movement” rather than “migration flow” due to the problematic nature of this metaphor. Water metaphors like “flow”, “surge” or “wave” suggest an uncontrollable and dangerous force, while also removing the agency of people on the move, as if they were just passively “flowing” from one place to another. Knowing what these migratory movements are and how they are measured does not only allow us to better interpret quantitative statements about the movement of people, but it also enables us to unpack the political nature of the “hard facts” of migration debates. Firstly, we want to explain what migratory movements are and how they are measured. Secondly, we address how different kinds of migratory movements are categorised and why it is important to address the new phenomenon of mixed migration.
According to a United Nations Toolkit on International Migration, migratory movements refer “to the number of international migrants (a) arriving in a country or (b) departing from a country over a specific period”. This data thus combines the two more basic measurements of:
a) inflow: people arriving in a country within a certain period of time, split by their country of origin, and
b) outflow: people leaving their country of origin within a certain period of time, split by their country of destination, i.e. host countries.
There is another way of measuring migration called “migration stocks”. The above mentioned toolkit states that “Migrant stocks are the total number of international migrants present in a given country at a particular point in time who ever changed their country of usual residence.” These can be counted either as immigrants (in the host country) or emigrants (in the country of origin) and are often further separated according to various demographic categories, such as age, gender or nationality. They are also classified according to their legal status, such as refugees, temporary workers, students or expatriates.
Both migratory movements and stocks are important to create a complete picture of migration. Migratory movements are a dynamic measure of the movement of people and show short-term developments. Migration stocks are a static measure that expresses long-term, cumulative changes in global populations.
In theory, population censuses are ideal for measuring migration stocks because they cover a large part of a population and provide detailed information about individuals. While some problems do exist in practice - migrant populations are often underrepresented and they most likely will not respond if they are undocumented - censuses are arguably the best source of migration data, resulting in migrant stocks being determined to a comparatively high degree of accuracy.
In contrast, data on migratory movements is inconsistent and often unreliable. It is very difficult for states to measure the inflow and outflow of migrants due to the transnational nature of the movement. Population registers (which record information on all regular residents of a country) and administrative sources (such as registries on visas and work permits) can be used to indirectly collect data on migratory movements. Sometimes there is also data from surveys conducted during border crossings and changes of residence.
While this kind of data might be helpful in tracking developments within a country, the use of different methodologies has produced problems for comparing data between states. Also, many countries only report incomplete numbers or none at all. The most reliable data on migratory movements comes from using a wide range of available statistics to model global movements. Recently, the European Union set up a system to improve data collection on migratory movements in Europe.
Measuring global migratory movements depends on statistical modeling and will not significantly improve any time soon. There are few attempts to improve data collection worldwide and cooperation between countries remains low. Experts also believe that even the best available data is flawed. Whenever we deal with data on migration and talk about the number of people moving between countries, we should remember that in many cases these are crude estimates. While they can be helpful for assessing the situation of the movement of people, we need more reliable data to improve policy responses. Being overconfident about our understanding of the global movement of people can lead to an undue commitment to the wrong policies.
However, beyond the quantitative side of migratory movements there is also a qualitative aspect that must be unpacked in order to truly understand the complexity of migration. People do not only talk about migration in terms of numbers, but also distinguish between different types of people on the move. In public discourse, some of these categories are used interchangeably and often without a clear understanding of what they mean. Of these different terms, “migrants”, “refugees” and “asylum seekers” are often used indistinguishably: we have unpacked the differences between these three terms in one of our Info Series posts. The UN handbook on migration statistics from 2017 calls on scientists to distinguish between nine different groups, which also include foreign students, vocational trainees, migrant workers or those who have the “right of free establishment” due to treaties between countries (e.g. within the European Union). Other entities use references to different groups and there is no clear agreement on what should be used.
Two distinctions in particular come up again and again in public debate about people on the move. The first distinguishes between those who leave their homes voluntarily or involuntarily and the second between those who cross borders regularly or irregularly. Both are thought to be clear distinctions that produce two distinct and separate groups, without any overlap, meaning a person is either a regular migrant or an irregular migrant. While this satisfies an interest for a simple black-and-white world, it does not do justice to the complicated reality of migration.
This distinction concerns the way that the decision to migrate was made: voluntary migration is thought to be based on an active choice, in the hope of some kind of improvement, while involuntary migration is forced and generally taken as the last resort to save one’s existence. The former is often associated with so-called “economic migrants” and the latter with refugees.
This conception is fundamental to much of the current international migration regime, which originated in the aftermath of World War II and the signing of the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. Back then, refugees were fleeing mainly from state persecution and could be clearly separated from labour migrants who sought better employment in other countries. At present, the motivations for leaving one’s home country have become more complex. Other factors that are not listed in the Geneva Convention as reasons for flight, are forcing people to leave their home countries. This includes economic crises and natural disasters that force people to become labour migrants.
Thus, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary becomes less clear-cut and is better understood as a continuum with fluid transitions. Reasons for flight can be both economic and threats from persecution, while those who are forced to flee can also hope to improve their economic situation. Thus, it makes more sense to think of migration as being motivated by a combination of factors that can be voluntary, involuntary or a mix of both.
We also need to remember that this concept of choice is a privilege that we have and impose on the situation. Many criticise asylum seekers for making dangerous crossings, risking the lives of their children and their own. However, this “choice” between staying or fleeing is something that can never be truly understood by someone who has not been forced into making such a choice. We have written about this in a previous post.
A similar distinction is made regarding the regulation of the movement of people. There are those who use existing legal mechanisms to move to another country and those who cross borders without proper documentation and oversight, and therefore without sanction from governments. In terms of migratory movements, the former are considered to be regular migrants because they entered regularly, while the latter entered outside of existing regulations and are considered to be irregular migrants. Typical examples of regular migrants are workers recruited by host countries or refugees taken in through humanitarian programs. In contrast, those fleeing from natural disasters or crisis situations are mostly entering countries irregularly.
While this distinction initially works well in theory - one either enters regularly or not - it is somewhat limited. Regular or irregular merely refers to the status of a migrant at a specific time: when they cross the border. Thus, a person who has entered irregularly can become a regular migrant by applying for asylum. On the other hand, a person who entered regularly can live in a country for longer than a residence permit stipulates and therefore become irregular. The same is true with regards to employment. These complicated mechanisms are overly simplified when public discourse and political rhetoric reduces them to a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” migrants. This is especially true when it goes along with a distinction of good and bad that reserves the label of “good migrant” for the increasingly small number of people who move through regulated pathways. These simplified labels can then serve to excuse xenophobic sentiments in host countries.
Apart from these difficulties of definition that already exist in theory, there are also problems of asserting this categorisation in practice. In an attempt to reduce immigration overall, governments limit regular entry paths, and those opportunities that do exist are not known by many people on the move. This is especially true in the European Union where asylum laws are becoming increasingly restrictive, and rhetoric about expanding regulated migration has not led to any significant changes. Due to these developments, the realities of regular and irregular migration are becoming more similar. As the distinction between refugees and migrants collapses and both types of people on the move are excluded from regular migration paths, they are forced to use irregular routes.
There is an international consensus that some people need protection as refugees because it is thought to be in the collective interest of all. This is codified in the 1951 Geneva Convention. On the other hand, states believe that it is in their narrow national interest to limit the movement of other people, whom they call migrants. States want only those people who are forced to leave their country of origin and enter by regular paths.
But having looked at these distinctions, it has become clear that they are not helpful for thinking about the reality of the global movement of people. Ultimately, we cannot clearly distinguish between migrants and refugees. People on the move who need protection are not always forced to flee according to the definitions of the Geneva Convention and do not always have the opportunity to cross borders regularly. The reality is that global migratory movements consist of people on the move with a mix of motivations and occur mostly on irregular routes. This is what has been described as mixed migration.
Mixed migration is defined by the UNHCR as “A movement in which a number of people are travelling together, generally in an irregular manner, using the same routes and means of transport, but for different reasons. People travelling as part of mixed movements [...] may include, e.g., asylum-seekers, refugees, victims of trafficking, unaccompanied/separated children, and migrants in an irregular situation.” The UNHCR published a 10-Point Plan of Action on Refugee Protection and Mixed Movements in 2007, which addressed the reality of mixed migratory movements. Since then it has been working on “developing and implementing migration and border policies that reflect international human rights and refugee law” according to the framework laid out in the plan. Other organisations like the International Organisation for Migration have created similar initiatives.
Whatever our opinions on migration policy, we should all agree that we need to protect people on the move and treat them according to the rights they are entitled to by international law. This is only possible when we drop simplified rhetoric and face the complex reality of mixed migration.
International migration flows | Migration Data Portal
Flowing Monitoring: Europe | IOM
World Migration Report 2020 | IOM
Mixed Migration Flows in the Mediterranean | IOM
What predicts asylum migration flows? | Prio
Asylum and migration in the EU: Facts and Figures | Eureporter [focus on impact of Covid-19]
Mixed Migration | Bertelsmann Stiftung
When societies talk about people on the move, the issue is often conceptualised in terms of numbers of people moving from one place to another. Whether through terms like “migrant surge” and “mass migration” or the discussions on “migration management” and the extent of the humanitarian crisis, we have a tendency to quantify the movement of people. This does not exclude us at Josoor: for example, we recently did an Info Series on the myth that most people flee to “Western” countries, in which we looked at numbers in the UNHCR “Report on Global Trends of Forced Displacement”.
Whether we are using data from this report or any other sources, the numbers we are talking about are what is known as “migratory movements” and experts commonly call “migration flows''. Throughout this blog we will be using the term “migratory movement” rather than “migration flow” due to the problematic nature of this metaphor. Water metaphors like “flow”, “surge” or “wave” suggest an uncontrollable and dangerous force, while also removing the agency of people on the move, as if they were just passively “flowing” from one place to another. Knowing what these migratory movements are and how they are measured does not only allow us to better interpret quantitative statements about the movement of people, but it also enables us to unpack the political nature of the “hard facts” of migration debates. Firstly, we want to explain what migratory movements are and how they are measured. Secondly, we address how different kinds of migratory movements are categorised and why it is important to address the new phenomenon of mixed migration.
According to a United Nations Toolkit on International Migration, migratory movements refer “to the number of international migrants (a) arriving in a country or (b) departing from a country over a specific period”. This data thus combines the two more basic measurements of:
a) inflow: people arriving in a country within a certain period of time, split by their country of origin, and
b) outflow: people leaving their country of origin within a certain period of time, split by their country of destination, i.e. host countries.
There is another way of measuring migration called “migration stocks”. The above mentioned toolkit states that “Migrant stocks are the total number of international migrants present in a given country at a particular point in time who ever changed their country of usual residence.” These can be counted either as immigrants (in the host country) or emigrants (in the country of origin) and are often further separated according to various demographic categories, such as age, gender or nationality. They are also classified according to their legal status, such as refugees, temporary workers, students or expatriates.
Both migratory movements and stocks are important to create a complete picture of migration. Migratory movements are a dynamic measure of the movement of people and show short-term developments. Migration stocks are a static measure that expresses long-term, cumulative changes in global populations.
In theory, population censuses are ideal for measuring migration stocks because they cover a large part of a population and provide detailed information about individuals. While some problems do exist in practice - migrant populations are often underrepresented and they most likely will not respond if they are undocumented - censuses are arguably the best source of migration data, resulting in migrant stocks being determined to a comparatively high degree of accuracy.
In contrast, data on migratory movements is inconsistent and often unreliable. It is very difficult for states to measure the inflow and outflow of migrants due to the transnational nature of the movement. Population registers (which record information on all regular residents of a country) and administrative sources (such as registries on visas and work permits) can be used to indirectly collect data on migratory movements. Sometimes there is also data from surveys conducted during border crossings and changes of residence.
While this kind of data might be helpful in tracking developments within a country, the use of different methodologies has produced problems for comparing data between states. Also, many countries only report incomplete numbers or none at all. The most reliable data on migratory movements comes from using a wide range of available statistics to model global movements. Recently, the European Union set up a system to improve data collection on migratory movements in Europe.
Measuring global migratory movements depends on statistical modeling and will not significantly improve any time soon. There are few attempts to improve data collection worldwide and cooperation between countries remains low. Experts also believe that even the best available data is flawed. Whenever we deal with data on migration and talk about the number of people moving between countries, we should remember that in many cases these are crude estimates. While they can be helpful for assessing the situation of the movement of people, we need more reliable data to improve policy responses. Being overconfident about our understanding of the global movement of people can lead to an undue commitment to the wrong policies.
However, beyond the quantitative side of migratory movements there is also a qualitative aspect that must be unpacked in order to truly understand the complexity of migration. People do not only talk about migration in terms of numbers, but also distinguish between different types of people on the move. In public discourse, some of these categories are used interchangeably and often without a clear understanding of what they mean. Of these different terms, “migrants”, “refugees” and “asylum seekers” are often used indistinguishably: we have unpacked the differences between these three terms in one of our Info Series posts. The UN handbook on migration statistics from 2017 calls on scientists to distinguish between nine different groups, which also include foreign students, vocational trainees, migrant workers or those who have the “right of free establishment” due to treaties between countries (e.g. within the European Union). Other entities use references to different groups and there is no clear agreement on what should be used.
Two distinctions in particular come up again and again in public debate about people on the move. The first distinguishes between those who leave their homes voluntarily or involuntarily and the second between those who cross borders regularly or irregularly. Both are thought to be clear distinctions that produce two distinct and separate groups, without any overlap, meaning a person is either a regular migrant or an irregular migrant. While this satisfies an interest for a simple black-and-white world, it does not do justice to the complicated reality of migration.
This distinction concerns the way that the decision to migrate was made: voluntary migration is thought to be based on an active choice, in the hope of some kind of improvement, while involuntary migration is forced and generally taken as the last resort to save one’s existence. The former is often associated with so-called “economic migrants” and the latter with refugees.
This conception is fundamental to much of the current international migration regime, which originated in the aftermath of World War II and the signing of the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. Back then, refugees were fleeing mainly from state persecution and could be clearly separated from labour migrants who sought better employment in other countries. At present, the motivations for leaving one’s home country have become more complex. Other factors that are not listed in the Geneva Convention as reasons for flight, are forcing people to leave their home countries. This includes economic crises and natural disasters that force people to become labour migrants.
Thus, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary becomes less clear-cut and is better understood as a continuum with fluid transitions. Reasons for flight can be both economic and threats from persecution, while those who are forced to flee can also hope to improve their economic situation. Thus, it makes more sense to think of migration as being motivated by a combination of factors that can be voluntary, involuntary or a mix of both.
We also need to remember that this concept of choice is a privilege that we have and impose on the situation. Many criticise asylum seekers for making dangerous crossings, risking the lives of their children and their own. However, this “choice” between staying or fleeing is something that can never be truly understood by someone who has not been forced into making such a choice. We have written about this in a previous post.
A similar distinction is made regarding the regulation of the movement of people. There are those who use existing legal mechanisms to move to another country and those who cross borders without proper documentation and oversight, and therefore without sanction from governments. In terms of migratory movements, the former are considered to be regular migrants because they entered regularly, while the latter entered outside of existing regulations and are considered to be irregular migrants. Typical examples of regular migrants are workers recruited by host countries or refugees taken in through humanitarian programs. In contrast, those fleeing from natural disasters or crisis situations are mostly entering countries irregularly.
While this distinction initially works well in theory - one either enters regularly or not - it is somewhat limited. Regular or irregular merely refers to the status of a migrant at a specific time: when they cross the border. Thus, a person who has entered irregularly can become a regular migrant by applying for asylum. On the other hand, a person who entered regularly can live in a country for longer than a residence permit stipulates and therefore become irregular. The same is true with regards to employment. These complicated mechanisms are overly simplified when public discourse and political rhetoric reduces them to a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” migrants. This is especially true when it goes along with a distinction of good and bad that reserves the label of “good migrant” for the increasingly small number of people who move through regulated pathways. These simplified labels can then serve to excuse xenophobic sentiments in host countries.
Apart from these difficulties of definition that already exist in theory, there are also problems of asserting this categorisation in practice. In an attempt to reduce immigration overall, governments limit regular entry paths, and those opportunities that do exist are not known by many people on the move. This is especially true in the European Union where asylum laws are becoming increasingly restrictive, and rhetoric about expanding regulated migration has not led to any significant changes. Due to these developments, the realities of regular and irregular migration are becoming more similar. As the distinction between refugees and migrants collapses and both types of people on the move are excluded from regular migration paths, they are forced to use irregular routes.
There is an international consensus that some people need protection as refugees because it is thought to be in the collective interest of all. This is codified in the 1951 Geneva Convention. On the other hand, states believe that it is in their narrow national interest to limit the movement of other people, whom they call migrants. States want only those people who are forced to leave their country of origin and enter by regular paths.
But having looked at these distinctions, it has become clear that they are not helpful for thinking about the reality of the global movement of people. Ultimately, we cannot clearly distinguish between migrants and refugees. People on the move who need protection are not always forced to flee according to the definitions of the Geneva Convention and do not always have the opportunity to cross borders regularly. The reality is that global migratory movements consist of people on the move with a mix of motivations and occur mostly on irregular routes. This is what has been described as mixed migration.
Mixed migration is defined by the UNHCR as “A movement in which a number of people are travelling together, generally in an irregular manner, using the same routes and means of transport, but for different reasons. People travelling as part of mixed movements [...] may include, e.g., asylum-seekers, refugees, victims of trafficking, unaccompanied/separated children, and migrants in an irregular situation.” The UNHCR published a 10-Point Plan of Action on Refugee Protection and Mixed Movements in 2007, which addressed the reality of mixed migratory movements. Since then it has been working on “developing and implementing migration and border policies that reflect international human rights and refugee law” according to the framework laid out in the plan. Other organisations like the International Organisation for Migration have created similar initiatives.
Whatever our opinions on migration policy, we should all agree that we need to protect people on the move and treat them according to the rights they are entitled to by international law. This is only possible when we drop simplified rhetoric and face the complex reality of mixed migration.
International migration flows | Migration Data Portal
Flowing Monitoring: Europe | IOM
World Migration Report 2020 | IOM
Mixed Migration Flows in the Mediterranean | IOM
What predicts asylum migration flows? | Prio
Asylum and migration in the EU: Facts and Figures | Eureporter [focus on impact of Covid-19]
Mixed Migration | Bertelsmann Stiftung
