World migration patterns
On April 8, 2014 / Leave a comment
The world is constantly moving
Global migration flows are remarkably stable. Researchers estimate that since 1995, within 5 years, 0.6 percent of the world population migrated to another country. How far people move differs considerably depending on the region.
In Germany last year alone more people applied for asylum than in one and a half centuries. Some institutions even speak of an “age of migration”. This impression has now been exposed as a myth by some researchers from Vienna – at least based on the last twenty years.
The two scientists of the Wittgenstein Centre for Uno analysed data, based on registers, surveys and refugee statistics, and build their own estimates on this. The results were published by Guy Abel and Nikola Sander in the current issue of the scientific journal “Science”. According to the research global migration figures stayed surprisingly constant between 196 countries over the period 1995 – 2010: Within five years, about 0.6 percent of the population had left one of these countries and found a new home elsewhere.
Poverty drives people far into the distance
In which regions the global migration starts and where it ends is shown by the circuit diagram above. The bigger the bar, the more people have changed their place of residence between 2005 and 2010. Some lines end where they start – this means there are old and new home in the same region. Others cut across the circle. They stand for much longer migration distances.
In the graph, only movements of at least 170,000 people are represented. At three points in the graph, characteristics of individual regions and global patterns are immediately apparent.
Interestingly people who walked away from a sub-Saharan country in Africa, usually remained in the region. Between 2005 and 2010, 665,000 people moved within East Africa, one million people migrated within West Africa. While migrants from Europe flock to many different destinations, people from Asia and Latin America often pick the same countries. From South Asia, almost all migrants moved to West Asia or North America, while Latin Americans moved to North America and Southern Europe. Although most shifts are within a region or between neighboring regions, the diagrams show also numerous migrations over very long distances. However, these are almost exclusively from poorer to richer regions.
Germans primarily move to Italy
The detailed graphics on black background are showing the larger streams with more than 60,000 migrants between 60 selected states. Germany is to be found in it on the right side in green. The graph shows that emigrants left Germany mainly to Italy. Most immigrants in Germany came from Turkey, the United States and Kazakhstan. Deeper divided, but focused on Germany’s migration statistics of the Federal Statistical Office. It contains both the relocation within Germany and across national borders.
Translated from German into English | Source: http://www.spiegel.de
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