Volume 53 - Article 19 | Pages 569–610  

Modelling the age and sex profiles of net international migration

By James Raymer, Qing Guan, Tianyu Shen, Sara Hertog, Patrick Gerland

Abstract

Background: Many national statistical offices and international agencies use age and sex profiles of net migration as inputs into demographic accounting models for population estimation and projection. Commonly used residual methods for inferring these profiles have proven inadequate due to errors in the measures of populations, births, and deaths.

Objective: We test and apply a new methodology to infer the age and sex profiles of net international migration.

Methods: Our strategy focuses on estimating flows of immigration and emigration by age and sex. Differences from these flow estimates are then used to represent estimates of net international migration.

Results: Based on promising results from empirical tests that used data from Sweden and the Republic of Korea, the methodology is extended to estimate age–sex patterns of net international migration for countries lacking migration data.

Conclusions: We develop a relatively simple yet powerful model for estimating the age and sex profiles of net international migration from estimated immigration and emigration age–sex profiles. The model is flexible such that it can be applied to any country situation, with or without data, and can be modified to incorporate new data or assumptions.

Contribution: This research contributes towards overcoming data limitations and improving understanding of migration processes, as well as the estimation and projection of populations.

Author’s Affiliation

• James Raymer - Australian National University, Australia EMAIL
• Qing Guan - Australian National University, Australia EMAIL
• Tianyu Shen - Australian National University, Australia EMAIL
• Sara Hertog - United Nations Population Division, United States of America EMAIL
• Patrick Gerland - United Nations Population Division, United States of America EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

The role of reductions in old-age mortality in old-age population growth
Volume 44 - Article 44

Estimating multiregional survivorship probabilities for sparse data: An application to immigrant populations in Australia, 1981–2011
Volume 40 - Article 18

Probabilistic projection of subnational total fertility rates
Volume 38 - Article 60

Joint probabilistic projection of female and male life expectancy
Volume 30 - Article 27

Integrating uncertainty in time series population forecasts: An illustration using a simple projection model
Volume 29 - Article 43

Old age mortality in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia
Volume 29 - Article 38

The temporal dynamics of international migration in Europe: Recent trends
Volume 26 - Article 21

Estimating trends in the total fertility rate with uncertainty using imperfect data: Examples from West Africa
Volume 26 - Article 15

Masculine sex ratios, population age structure and the potential spread of HIV in China
Volume 22 - Article 3

Hotspots and Coldspots: Household and village-level variation in orphanhood prevalence in rural Malawi
Volume 19 - Article 32

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

The distortion of fertility due to migration: A comparative analysis of migrants in the Netherlands and stayers in Poland
Volume 53 - Article 12    | Keywords: international migration, low-fertility, migrants, Netherlands, Poland, selectivity

Jointly estimating subnational mortality for multiple populations
Volume 52 - Article 3    | Keywords: Bayesian hierarchical model, estimation, joint estimation, mortality rates, principal components analysis, subnational, US counties

Is single parenthood increasingly an experience of less-educated mothers? A European comparison over five decades
Volume 51 - Article 34    | Keywords: age, children, cross-national comparison, education, Europe, family life course, inequality, single motherhood

A multidimensional global migration model for use in cohort-component population projections
Volume 51 - Article 11    | Keywords: age dependency, education, international migration, migration, modelling, population projection, projections

Which definition of migration better fits Facebook ‘expats’? A response using Mexican census data
Volume 50 - Article 39    | Keywords: census data, Facebook, international migration, Mexico, social media