Who migrates?

Part I. Top countries of destination and origin

While the global number of international migrants has increased substantially over the past 25 years, rising from approximately 161 million migrants in 1995 to 281 migrants in 2020, the proportion of international migrants has only slightly increased, rising from 2.8 to 3.6 per cent of the global population over the intervening years. While absolute numbers of immigrants have increased by tens of millions worldwide, the share of international migrants as a proportion of each region’s population differs across regions.

Between 1995 and 2020, only a few countries changed from being among the top 20 migrant origin countries (with Portugal, Belarus, the Republic of Korea and Afghanistan included among the top 20 in 1995, but replaced by 2020 by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Romania, Egypt and Viet Nam). We can see, however, that there are far fewer medium HDI countries of origin by 2020 and no low HDI countries; however, this relates in part to the development progress by countries and their recategorization (discussed further below). The prevalence of high and very high HDI countries as origin countries is quite stark by 2020, accounting for 16 of the 20 top origin countries.

In terms of destination countries as at 1995 and 2020, compared with the top 20 origin countries, there was greater change evident, with five countries dropping out of the list (Pakistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Argentina, Israel and Uzbekistan), being replaced by Spain, Thailand, Malaysia, Kuwait and Japan. With the exception of the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, India, Jordan and Ukraine, all of the destination countries in both the 1995 and 2020 top 20 lists experienced increases in numbers and proportions of immigrants over this period. Further, Table 3 shows the substantial increase in numbers of immigrants experienced in many destination countries, most notably in the United States of America, Saudi Arabia, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. This highlights that while it may be useful to discuss international migrants at the global and regional levels, there are distinct long term country-to-country corridors that account for large proportions of international migration, potentially masking the extent to which migration remains highly uneven globally.

Part II. Snapshot of international migrants