federal department of home affairs fdha federal statistical office fso item 3: methods to improve...

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHAFederal Statistical Office FSO

Item 3: Methods to Improve

Estimates of Migration Flows

Joint UNECE/Eurostat Work Session on Migration Statistics, Geneva, 3-5 March 2008

Discussant

Marcel Heiniger, Swiss Federal Statistical Office

2 Item 3: Methods to Improve Estimates of Migration Flows | Discussant: Marcel Heiniger, SFSOJoint UNECE/Eurostat Work Session on Migration Statistics, Geneva, 3-5 March 2008


Presentations

1. WP 8 “The MIMOSA model for estimating international migration flows in the European Union”

2. WP 4 “Comparing international migrations flows between sending and receiving countries: Lessons of a recent cooperation between Belgium and the Netherlands”

3. WP 10 “Measuring net migration using household surveys”



The Challenge

▪ a long history of inadequate, incomparable and missing migration data

▪ the need for an international migration data base that is complete, consistent and contains reliable migration estimates



The Problem

Guidelines and methodologies for providing harmonized estimates of international migration flows have yet to be developed or implemented



The Goals

1. to bridge the gap between available data on international migration flows and the information required for policy makers and research

2. to develop and employ methodologies to convert raw data on migration into internationally comparable statistics

3. to estimate migration flow data that are comparable across countries and to establish a coherent and consistent data base that contains sufficiently detailed, up-to-date and reliable information



Possible Approaches

1. to estimate net migration

2. to estimate gross migration flows



Current Initiatives

Project ‘MIgration MOdeling for Statistical Analyses’ (MIMOSA)

To develop appropriate methodologies to reconcile the differences in international migration statistics in European countries and to assist EU Member States to produce more reliable migration figures, to make all available figures more compatible and more comparable and to estimate missing data using all available data and expert opinions



Possible Approaches (2)

origin-destination (double entry) migration matrices

models of migration• to predict migration flows from available (defective) data• to adjust data based on data deemed to be accurate and

reliable• to use adjusted data as the basis for estimating the

missing data• to augment the above information by empirically

established regularities and expert opinions



Models of Migration

• use available information from one or more sources in combination with realistic assumptions about the relation between various data types and structures of the missing data

• aim to produce the best possible estimates of international migration during a given period

• are rooted in statistical theory and use/combine different methods and techniques

• incorporate the strengths of theory and empirical data

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