Overcoming data limitations to estimate annual migration flows amongst ASEAN countries, 2000-2015

Overcoming data limitations to estimate annual migration flows amongst ASEAN countries, 2000-2015

This paper seeks to provide a better understanding of migration data and patterns amongst the ten countries constituting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The paper elucidates annual migration movements and pathways, which have remained largely unknown due to the lack of data to date. Our effort thus helps generate better understandings of social and demographic changes in the South-East Asian region, where international migration has been thriving and increasing rapidly in the two recent decades. To do this, we start by reviewing all publicly available international migration data sources and examining the possibility of harmonising these data. We then estimate annual bilateral migration flows amongst the ten ASEAN countries with a multiplicative component model, borrowing data from 35 countries and auxiliary information including population sizes, demographic and economic conditions, as well as bilateral relationships such as bilateral trade flows and remittance flows. Our results include an annotated database of reported ASEAN migration data and a set of estimates for annual country-to-country migration flows amongst the ten ASEAN countries from 2000 to 2015. We find that the reported data suffer from many issues, including missing data, inconsistent definition of migrants and severe under-coverage of specific types of migration (such as returned nationals). Further, no particular data source stands out as a consistent and reliable benchmark from which other reported data can be compared. Against that backdrop, our estimated migration flows represent an important first step to overcome the crucial issues of missing and incomplete data in South-East Asia.

James Raymer is a Professor in the School of Demography. He joined the Australian National University in 2013 from the University of Southampton as a Vice Chancellor’s Strategic Appointment in Demography. His research focuses on developing innovative methodologies and analytical frameworks to study demographic processes. He is currently working on three research projects funded by the Australian Research Council and the Australian Capital Territory’s Education Directorate.

Qing Guan is a PhD candidate in the School of Demography. Her research focuses on migration theory and modelling, particularly in international migration modelling and spatial integration of immigrants in Australia. Qing is also a Research Assistant in the ARC Discovery Project ‘Overcoming the problems of inconsistent migration data in the Asia Pacific’ (DP170102468).

Jasmine Trang Ha is a Research Fellow at the School of Demography. She obtained her PhD in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, United States, where she studied migration patterns of international students into and within the United States. Her research focuses on migration data estimation, theorising and quantifying the components and categorisations of migration, and understanding the impacts of migration policies.

 

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Date & time

Tue 04 Jun 2019, 11:30am to 12:30pm

Location

Jean Martin Room, Beryl Rawson Bldg 13, Ellery Crescent, ANU

Speakers

James Raymer, Qing Guan and Jasmine Trang Ha

Contacts

Susan Cowan
6125 4273

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