"Because previous estimation methods relied on coarse five-year snapshots,
they yielded very few data points and created the impression that the rate
of global migration flows was stable," adds co-author Guy Abel, a research
scholar in the Migration and Sustainable Development Research Group of the
IIASA Population and Just Societies Program and professor at the University
of Hong Kong. "Our annual data provides a clearer picture, revealing that
this rate has actually risen since 2000. This upward trend appears to be
driven by long-term demographic shifts and economic development rather than
sudden, isolated crises."
So if I'm following correctly, when you look at coarse data, you miss a lot of the smaller-scale migration, and that small-scale migration pushes the totals up a lot?
Their dataset is so pathetically small you can't infer anything from it. There are still people alive from the India/Pakistan migration in 48 and that would be number one on this list
None of these regions have homogeneous conditions that mean anyone needs to be replacing fleeing locals to explain these stats. Millions of migrant workers are in the Gulf, and many of them come from the Philippines. Millions of people have fled conflicts in other parts of the Middle East.
"fleeing" and "replaced" are loaded terms, I don't think you can derive that from this data. That said, there's a lot of workers being imported from Asia to the middle-east for their ambitious construction projects, could that explain it?
Eh? Persians gave the name "Hindus" to the people living in that area. But they had their own religion, Zoroastrianism. They didn't bring Hinduism because they didn't have Hinduism.
Fascinating to see that MENA is a net positive on migration. There's often a lot of rhetoric around MENA migration to Europe and North America, but you hear much less about migration to MENA countries.
"The UAE hosts some 8.7 million migrant workers – equivalent to over 80 per cent of the country’s resident population – making it one of the largest foreign labour-receiving countries in the world. With Emirati nationals mainly employed in the public sector, migrant workers constitute the bulk of private sector employment"
I think people underestimate how many people move back to their home country once they have a better chance (through e.g. education or money) and / or when the situation there improves (e.g. stability). It's why I don't understand why the anti-immigration parties don't do more internationally to help other countries.
Why has , recently, Pakistan been seen added more and more to a new category "MENAP" and separate from South Asia (i.e. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh) ?
These classifications should be geographic and could even racial, but it seems this new classification (MENAP) seems more "religious"
Pakistan being “south asia” makes about as much sense as Turkey and Saudi Arabia being labeled “west asia”. Technically correct, odd choice for modern communication.
In America at least, all the hot deserty places between Europe and India=Middle East. I only started hearing the term "South Asia" to refer to places like Pakistan after encountering more non-Americans online. Afghanistan is also considered as part of the Middle East to basically every average American (hence why it's lumped in with all those "Middle Eastern wars"), but I'm not sure if it's seen that way in other areas.
Yes, but there are (in)famous examples such as the partition of Bengal (the tiger which Britain feared) being partitioned into Pakistan and India, which when included would provide a useful metric for the scale of human suffering involved.
Ffs, trying to click on a country and the globe keeps rotating, hahah. When i click on nations, it doesn't tell me the numbers either, there's just these blobby lines :/
The year 2000 also happens to coincide with the rise of the Putin regime. One of their favourite methods of statecraft is to spitefully lash out at perceived "enemies" by using their enormous information-warfare capability to stoke irregular immigration in ways to maximise chaos in countries that Russia hates and resents.
People who believe they are financially secure may move from regions which are considered “wealthy” to regions which are seen to be “poorer” (and cheaper). This outflow can influence this data.
As the article points out. The researcher’s site has an exploratory tool to view the data [1].
[1] https://www.socsc.hku.hk/rhps/global-migration/
If you pick 2023/2024 and the UK, you can see the disaster that is the Boris Wave.
That tool could be interesting if there was a way to stop the rendered globe from spinning. As is, it is unusable
Select the more options pulldown menu, click on projection, select ‘natural Earth’, no spinning.
if you click and hold on a country, it stops spinning :)
Further down the page, there's a link to an article from a couple of years ago, titled "Migration isn’t increasing".
So which is it?
There's a quote from one of the study authors:
So if I'm following correctly, when you look at coarse data, you miss a lot of the smaller-scale migration, and that small-scale migration pushes the totals up a lot?Their dataset is so pathetically small you can't infer anything from it. There are still people alive from the India/Pakistan migration in 48 and that would be number one on this list
Interesting how South America, with several countries made up majorly of immigrants, receives almost no new migrants now.
Meanwhile the middle-east population is fleeing and being replaced with asians?
None of these regions have homogeneous conditions that mean anyone needs to be replacing fleeing locals to explain these stats. Millions of migrant workers are in the Gulf, and many of them come from the Philippines. Millions of people have fled conflicts in other parts of the Middle East.
"fleeing" and "replaced" are loaded terms, I don't think you can derive that from this data. That said, there's a lot of workers being imported from Asia to the middle-east for their ambitious construction projects, could that explain it?
At least in Argentina that is because it's not the land of opportunities it used to be in the late 19th/early 20th century.
Internal migration has mostly saturated capacity all accross the region in South America
It'll take a while until anyone relaxes
> Meanwhile the middle-east population is fleeing and being replaced with asians?
Persians brought Hinduism to India, so maybe they're returning the favour
Eh? Persians gave the name "Hindus" to the people living in that area. But they had their own religion, Zoroastrianism. They didn't bring Hinduism because they didn't have Hinduism.
Fascinating to see that MENA is a net positive on migration. There's often a lot of rhetoric around MENA migration to Europe and North America, but you hear much less about migration to MENA countries.
The Gulf states take in a lot of migrant workers, who have basically no labour rights there.
https://www.ilo.org/regions-and-countries/arab-states/united...
"The UAE hosts some 8.7 million migrant workers – equivalent to over 80 per cent of the country’s resident population – making it one of the largest foreign labour-receiving countries in the world. With Emirati nationals mainly employed in the public sector, migrant workers constitute the bulk of private sector employment"
I think people underestimate how many people move back to their home country once they have a better chance (through e.g. education or money) and / or when the situation there improves (e.g. stability). It's why I don't understand why the anti-immigration parties don't do more internationally to help other countries.
Because we, correctly, assume that some countries are simply beyond saving. Throwing good money after bad.
Isn't migration to MENA - specifically migration to North Africa mainly from Sub-Saharan part of Africa?
Why has , recently, Pakistan been seen added more and more to a new category "MENAP" and separate from South Asia (i.e. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh) ?
These classifications should be geographic and could even racial, but it seems this new classification (MENAP) seems more "religious"
Pakistan being “south asia” makes about as much sense as Turkey and Saudi Arabia being labeled “west asia”. Technically correct, odd choice for modern communication.
Pedantic response that makes light of a real issue. In case you haven't noticed, not every "western" country is actually in the western hemisphere.
In America at least, all the hot deserty places between Europe and India=Middle East. I only started hearing the term "South Asia" to refer to places like Pakistan after encountering more non-Americans online. Afghanistan is also considered as part of the Middle East to basically every average American (hence why it's lumped in with all those "Middle Eastern wars"), but I'm not sure if it's seen that way in other areas.
Bangladesh is Muslim though
*data doesn't go back beyond 2000, safe to ignore
???
Data quality issues usually get worse the further back you go.
Yes, but there are (in)famous examples such as the partition of Bengal (the tiger which Britain feared) being partitioned into Pakistan and India, which when included would provide a useful metric for the scale of human suffering involved.
Only 1.7m people left North America in 2023 (4.4m arrivals). Would be interesting to compare to figures from 2025.
US had net negative migration in 2025 for the first time in decades:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/14/immigra...
> interesting
You have a funny way of spelling "sad" my friend.
Can someone explain the graphic?
The graphic seems vague and not particularly revealing.
I was trying to figure out the inflow and outflow. It looks bidirectional.
Europe and Central Asia added people. So did North America.
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan was flat.
Other regions lost people.
Left to Right.
Leaving, Arriving.
In that case the observation is that North America is getting a more diverse set of immigrants
Here's the actual graph/data in question. The article is a dense academic snooooooozefest:
https://www.socsc.hku.hk/rhps/global-migration/
Ffs, trying to click on a country and the globe keeps rotating, hahah. When i click on nations, it doesn't tell me the numbers either, there's just these blobby lines :/
Not very usable.
Options -> change projection helps a little bit.
The year 2000 also happens to coincide with the rise of the Putin regime. One of their favourite methods of statecraft is to spitefully lash out at perceived "enemies" by using their enormous information-warfare capability to stoke irregular immigration in ways to maximise chaos in countries that Russia hates and resents.
I hope you aren't suggesting Russia is uniquely to blame in this when the United States has displaced tens of millions of people in the last 20 years
People who believe they are financially secure may move from regions which are considered “wealthy” to regions which are seen to be “poorer” (and cheaper). This outflow can influence this data.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/american-...
> This outflow can influence this data
Influence how? Migrations from wealthy to poor regions are still migrations, no?