Measuring Migration: Best Practices in Censuses and Household Surveys

1
Measuring Migration Best Practices in Censuses
and Household Surveys

• Gero Carletto
• Carlo Azzarri

2
Background

• Migration policy research hampered by
  availability of data
• Definitions and measurements of migration varies
  across and within countries (from ? sources), and
  overtime
• Best practices?
• Lack of consensus
• Who is an international migrant?
• What type of migration?

3
What type of migration?

• Flow vs. Stock
• Immigrant vs emigrant (net migration)
• Permanent/L-T vs. temporary/S-T
• Circular, returnees
• Internal
• Undocumented/irregular
• International migrants vs. international
  migration (multiple moves)
• ? Different definitions/dimensions, different
  sources

4
Outline

• Concepts and definitions
• Data sources
• Sampling and survey options
• Questionnaire contents/design
• Conclusions and next steps

5
Concepts

• (Change in) Place of usual residence
• Time/duration of stay
• Purpose of stay
• Citizenship
• Place of birth
• Alone or in combinations
• in which order?
• for which purpose?
• ? Used differently by different sources and
  depending on objective

6
Definition of Intl Mig (FLOW)

• An international migrant is a person who changes
  his/her own country of usual residence (UN RSIM,
  Rev. 1)
• Place of usual residence?
• normally spends daily period of rest
• Usual ? legal
• Boarding students? Weekly commuters?
• No provision for
• Duration of stay
• Purpose of move

7
Long- vs. Short-term migrants (UN RSIM Rev 1.)

• A long-term migrant is a person who moves to a
  country other than that of his/her usual
  residence for a period of at least a year (12
  months)
• A short-term migrant is a person who moves to a
  country other than that of his/her usual
  residence for a period of at least 3 months but
  less than a year (12 months) (except for
  recreation, holiday, business, medical treatment,
  )

8
Definition of Intl mig.(STOCK)

• Persons who have ever changed their country of
  usual residence i.e. spent at least 1 year in a
  country other than the one in which they live at
  the time data gathered (UN RSIM Rev. 1)
• Relevant population groups
• foreigners (non-citizens of country of usual
  residence)
• foreign-born (born in country other than one in
  which they are being enumerated)
• provisions for 14 special groups

9
Alternative definition (Bilsborrow et al, 1997)

• An international migrant is a person who have
  lived for at least 6 months in a country other
  than that in which they are being interviewed and
  whose move into the country of interview occurred
  during the 5 years preceding the interview
• but definition assumes presence!

10
Complementary definition (Bilsborrow et al.,
1997)

• An international migrant is a person who used to
  live in the country in which the interview is
  being conducted and was a member of the household
  of the person being interviewed but who left at
  some point in time during the 5 years preceding
  the interview to live abroad for at least 6
  months

11
Operationalizing definitions

• Usual Place of residence
• Some countries do not use concept of migrant
• Why 3-6-12 months?
• Intended vs. actual duration of stay?
• at time of arrival based on intention
• upon completion of 12-month period
• Lots of provisions!

12
Data sources

• Population registers
• Other administrative records
• Population censuses
• Surveys

13
Data sources Pop Registers

• PROS
• Continuous
• Measure of FLOWS (consistent with STOCKS)
• De facto duration of stay/absence (if
  centralized)
• CONS
• Not run by NSO coordination
• Only limited information
• Often not public access
• Often only nationals only documented
• (dis)Incentive to register/deregister
• Intended vs. actual duration of stay
• Quality variability (if decentralized)
• Feasible for LDCs? (EU from PopCensus to
  Registers)
• Only 15 countries reporting flows figures (mostly
  from pop registers UK, NZ from border statistics)

14
Data sources Other admin records

• Border crossings (flows)
• Registry of foreign workers
• Embassy/consular data
• Resident permit holders/applicants
• Diaspora organizations/NGOs in D country
• Emigration clearance certificates
• Destination country sources
• often incomplete both in coverage and content

15
Data sources PopCensus

• Most reliable source of internationally
  comparable IMMIGRANT stocks.
• PROS
• Universal coverage
• Some characterization possible, based on basic
  demographics and socio-economic, e.g.
• Gender (feminization of migration)
• Age (SSS fertility)
• Occupation (workforce)
• Educational level (brain drain/gain)

16
Data sources PopCensus (contd)

• CONS
• Every 10 years
• Limited information (policy analysis?)
• Poor/delayed tabulation
• Low training of enumerators/data quality
• Different approaches/definition
• De facto (present population) vs. de jure (usual
  population)
• 14 sub-groups for special treatment
• Under-coverage
• Entire families that moved
• Seasonal/temporary, circular (night prior to
  census date)
• Marginal groups (undocumented migrants?)
• Housing arrangements, language, distrust,
  mobility,

17
Data sources PopCensus (contd)
(Chen, 2006)
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Data sources PopCensus (contd)

• Only 1 country in 89 compliant with UN RSIM Rev.1
  (of 153 of 196)!
• 11 countries close to definition
• citizenship (93 countries)
• stateless
• place of birth (112 countries)
• new countries
• PoR at some point in time in the past (88
  countries)
• (Chen, 2006)

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Data sources PopCensus emigrants?

• Self-reporting about absentees based on
  socio-econ status (hh membership)
• Two (indirect) methods based on demographics
  (IUSSP)
• Place of Residence (PoR) of siblings
• PoR of children (complementing existing sources
  split surviving children by PoR)
• Even more limited information on emigrants
• Less flexibility
• No sensitive info (affect coverage)
• Feasible at all?
• Quality of information
• Proxy respondent
• Enumerators training
• Balance equation/residual (Albania)
• Using data from PopCensus in D countries?

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Data sources Surveys

• Despite hype, haphazard efforts
• Little attention in
• UN RSIM Rev 1.
• EGM recommendations
• Countries should explore the possibility of
  using sample surveys to collect data on
  international migration, especially for those
  aspects for which no other sources are available
• PROS
• In-depth analysis
• determinants, distributional analysis, impact
  (??)
• More flexibility
• Emigration (last resort?)
• CONS
• Rare event, clustered
• Sampling error
• Sampling frame (emigrants)
• Richer info but still limitations through proxy
  respondents

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Survey options prob vs. non-prob

• Probability finding rare events
• Huge sample?
• 8 procedures (Kish, 1965)
• Disproportionate
• Two-phase
• Non-probability
• Case studies
• Purposive geo selection (NIDI/Eurostat)
• Snowball
• Aggregation point intercept (Brazil-Nikkei)

22
Survey options HH vs. non-HH

• Passenger surveys
• UK IPS (flows)
• Low incidence
• Short questionnaire
• HH surveys
• Specialized
• Preferred option but
• Too costly/unfeasible
• Limited thematic coverage
• Piggy-backing
• Richer info (welfare?) but shorter migration
  module
• Marginal costs
• Sampling issues
• LSMS/IHS (small sample Albania), HBS/IES (high
  non-response resistance) LFS (larger sample
  frequency no welfare Philippines)

23
Survey on Overseas Filipinos (SOF)

• Long tradition now integral part of LFS.
• 1982 1-page rider to ISH
• 1987 part of LFS (OFW only)
• 1993 expanded module, renamed (OF)
• 2003 Master sample (51,000 HHs)
• Estimates and characterize stock of overseas
  Filipinos, including OFW (presently AND
  temporarily working overseas in last 5 year
  period) 1.2M in 2004

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• Questionnaire
• Contents / Design

25
Identifying a migrant in HH

• Approach 1 Typical LSMS/IHS
• Self-reported hh membership (usually eat and
  live together)
• No. months absent in past 12 months
• Provisions, for HH head, new-comers
• Several drawback
• Permanent migrants?
• Exclusion based on arbitrary cut-off
• Ambiguous
• Misses entire HHs

26
Identifying a migrant in HH (contd)

• Approach 2
• in the last 5 years, did anyone who lives or
  lived with you go to live in another country?
• Captures recent migrants but
• Still ambiguous
• Arbitrary reference period
• Still misses entire HHs

27
Identifying a migrant in HH (contd)

• Approach 3 Extended roster (with flap)
• List all present and former hh members
  irrespective of PoR
• Captures all members but
• Still ambiguous
• Incentive to underreport?
• Misses entire HHs

28
Identifying a migrant in HH (contd)

• Approach 4 Expanded fertility module (Albania
  LSMS 2002)
• From 15-49 to above 15
• List all women in age group
• List all children ever born from woman
• PoR for still alive
• However
• Still possible undercount
• mother absent
• Misses entire HHs

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Once identify (e)migrant

• How much information can you elicit through proxy
  respondent? Whats the min-MAX amount of info?
• Age, gender, occupation (before and during)
• Length stay abroad/year of departure
• Country of destination
• Living with spouse/children
• Legal status?
• Multiple episodes?
• Recall methods
• Less accurate through proxy
• Recall bias (Smith and Thomas, 2003 Som, 1973)

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Albania LSMS 2005

• Expanded module on (permanent) migrants (non-hh
  members) plus contact information for tracking in
  D country
• Full histories and characterization of migration
  of current household members (15 years)
• Bound grid
• Clear time-marks

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Migration histories of HH members
ID CODE 1990 1990 1991 1991 1992 1992 1993 1993 1994 1994 1995 1995 1996 1996 1997 1997 1998 1998 1999 1999 2000 2000 2001 2001 2002 2002 2003 2003 2004 2004 2005 2005
  C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M C M
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
                                                                 
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What if entire HH moves?

• If dwelling occupied
• Ask new occupant
• About location
• About relatives still in communities
• If dwelling vacant/destroyed
• Ask neighbor
• Ask neighbor about relative still in community
• If dwelling moved?
• Internal migrants
• Restricted universe of analysis
• Track them? Feasible?

33
Tracking migrants

• Replace proxy respondent
• Issues
• Info needs
• Attrition
• Costs
• Albania (forward tracking)
• Tonga (backward tracking)

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Tracking Albanian migrants in Greece

• Contact info
• Process
• Greece only list of migrants with contacts
• 1st contact in Greece
• Return visit in Fall (phone cards)
• 2nd contact in Greece
• Interview
• High attrition
• No contact info
• Unable to locate
• Islands (high costs)
• Refusal (not high)
• Returnees/high mobility
• Selection bias(es)? (undocumented aliens)

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Conclusions

• Standards not uniformly adopted across and within
  countries (depending on source), and changing
• Definition to be adopted depends on objective at
  hand and sub-populations of interest
• Census stock, but
• Registers flows, but
• Survey Surprisingly, still little attention
• Weakest link emigration!
• Better estimations
• Better characterization
• Better sampling frames

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Next steps WBs role?

• 2010 Round of PopCensus
• Influence Qx design
• Min set of questions on immigrant stock
• Question on Emigrant?
• Approximation for stratification in sampling
  frame
• Improve admin records
• TFSCB
• Register (if available) and/or border crossing
• Inter-institutional collaboration
• Data access

37
Next steps WBs role? (contd)

• HH surveys
• Support proper sample designs
• Sampling frames of emigrants
• enhanced PSU listing for 2-stage
• Oversampling in planned surveys
• Reduce undercount/misreporting
• Fielding and validation of ? approaches (LSMSIV)
• Adjust for entire migrant households
• Specialized vs. multi-purpose
• Better income-based measures

38
Next steps WBs role?(contd)

• HH surveys (contd)
• Improve content
• Much more flexibility allowed
• Emigrants, Returnees,
• If migrant present
• Histories of migration
• Retrospective data, determinants
• Through proxy
• Minimal set of questions?
• Contact info for tracking (sub-sample?)
• Tracking surveys
• Panel surveys
• Make provision in baseline