Press conference

1
Press conference
THESIMTowards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration
When?   30th March 2006 at 1030 Where?  Résidenc
e Palace (lecture room, ground floor)            
    rue de la Loi, 155                
BrusselsWho?  - Michel Poulain (Unviersité
catholique de Louvain) - Ann
Singleton (University of Bristol) -
Nicolas Perrin (Université catholique de Louvain)
2
THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration

• Different national systems
• Legislation
• Sources
• Concepts and definitions
• Data collection systems
• Production of statistics
• Problems of comparability

3
THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration

• Asylum statistics
• Asylum applications
• Total numbers most up-to-date, often
  provisional
• Cases or individuals?
• Dependents included or not?
• First and/or repeat applications included?

4
THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration

• Asylum decisions
• Decision process differs between countries
• Data available later, often corrected later
• First instance and subsequent decisions?
• What is a negative, non-status or other decision?
• No cohort data

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THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration

• Consequences for interpretation of the figures
• Not possible to follow the progress of cohort
  throughout the process
• Not possible to know how many people are awaiting
  a decision, what happens following a negative
  decision

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THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration

• Flow statistics immigration and emigration
• Hundreds of sources - often different for
  immigration, emigration, nationals, non-nationals
  
• Censuses, surveys, border counts, registration
  systems
• Emigration is always under-counted
• NB do not calculate net migration as the
  difference between immigration and emigration
  figures because of the undercount and the
  different sources.

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THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration

• Immigration
• Common problems to check
• Are nationals (citizens) included in the flows?
• Does the data source (eg work permits, visas)
  include only one group of migrants?
• Is the figure an estimate ?

8
THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics
on International Migration

• What the figures dont show
• Unrecorded migration
• Some unrecorded immigration is legal
• Some illegal immigration is recorded
• Illegal immigration figures are always estimates
• People move from one status to another