Migration

Las proyecciones y estimaciones demográficas son herramientas fundamentales para la planificación y el desarrollo, pues proporcionan un marco que permite prever cambios en la población que afectarán las decisiones de política pública y el uso de los recursos en diversas áreas.

International migration has remained a constant throughout Latin American and Caribbean history. The region received immigrants from the start of its colonization until the mid-twentieth century, when it became characterized by emigration: in fact, since 1950, net migration for the region has been negative.

The MENA region remains one of the world’s most dynamic mobility landscapes, shaped by a combination of labour migration, protracted displacement, environmental stress and evolving socioeconomic conditions. In 2024, the region hosted 44.1 million international migrants, representing 9.5 per cent of its total population of 465 million. The MENA region remains a major region of origin (with over 40 million nationals living abroad), transit, and destination and continues to experience significant internal displacement, totalling 21.7 million people in the same year.

El Centro Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Demografía (CELADE)-División de Población de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) pone a disposición de sus usuarios esta edición del Observatorio Demográfico, en que se recogen indicadores seleccionados de las estimaciones y proyecciones de población de 47 países y territorios de América Latina y el Caribe.

The Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE)-Population Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is pleased to present its readers with this edition of the Demographic Observatory, which includes selected indicators of population estimates and projections for 47 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean.

This edition of the Demographic Observatory analyses the main outcomes of the 2024 revision of World Population Prospects, which consolidates the methodological advances of previous revisions and incorporates new census, survey and vital statistics data published in recent years. The results of the estimates and projections of CELADE-Population Division of ECLAC for urban and rural areas and the labour force are also presented.

Fires in displacement sites are a persistent and dangerous reality for millions of people forced from their homes. Despite rising global temperatures and several high-profile incidents, fire preparedness and response remain critically under-addressed in humanitarian response. There is no global system to monitor or reduce fire risk in displacement settings, leaving communities exposed and unprepared for fire emergencies, with no way to understand causes or quantify damage.

The report was led and coordinated by the IOM MENA Regional Data Hub, authored by Emmanuel Quarshie under the overall leadership and strategic guidance of Othman Belbeisi, Regional Director, IOM MENA; Justin Macdermott, Deputy Regional Director for Operations, IOM MENA; and Princelle Dasappa- Venketsamy, Senior Regional Thematic Specialist (Data and Research), IOM MENA.

Drawing on Europe’s experience, this brief provides a cross-country comparative overview of inequality affecting children in the migration pathway, who are often described as 'children on the move'. Following a brief overview of the policy and practice in relation to various categories of refugee and migration children in Europe, it reflects on the performance of the countries with regard to Target 10.7 of the SDG.

Like adults, children migrate across borders for different reasons and in varying circumstances; and they face legal consequences as a result of their migration. Two of these consequences are common to all child migrants and have far-reaching implications: the child migrants become non-citizens or aliens once they cross a border, and they face a new social environment once they leave home. The existing legal framework does not directly address either of these consequences. Domestic child protection law, which addresses the problems facing children without satisfactory homes, does not often cover issues of foreign citizenship, including the risk of deportation and lack of entitlement to social benefits that non-citizen children can face. And migration law, which establishes the parameters of lawful status for recognized categories of migrant, does not deal with the needs and circumstances of most children who travel independently of their families. However, international law has long recognized the distinctive needs of some groups of child migrants. In the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the League of Nations in 1924, the first ever international child rights declaration, two of the five principles articulated define rights relevant to child migrants: (1) the primacy of the child’s right to relief in times of distress (a precursor to attention to the special needs of refugee children) and (2) the imperative of protection for exploited children (prefiguring concern with child trafficking). More recent regional and domestic legislation regulating immigration has included provisions promoting family unity and by implication the migration of children with or to join their adult relatives. A broader engagement with the many other aspects of child migration however has been absent. There is no single piece of international or regional legislation that systematically and comprehensively addresses the issue. As a result the body of relevant legislation, though quite extensive and diverse, has an impact on child migrants which is inconsistent and incomplete.

Current times are characterized by unprecedented migration levels: millions of people are on the move worldwide. Thus, understanding why people decide to migrate is a major goal of policymakers and international organizations, and migration has become a prominent issue on the global research agenda. Traditional migration drivers can be divided into reasons to leave (‘push’ factors) and reasons to migrate (‘pull’ factors), and include income deprivation, dissatisfaction with public services and institutions in the home country, conflict and war, climate change, and social networks abroad. In this paper, we focus our attention on children’s well-being as a potential migration driver. We investigate it by using the Gallup World Poll, a repeated cross-section dataset of a survey conducted in more than 150 countries from 2006 to 2016. We estimate the association between planned and intended migration and children’s perceived well-being using logit models with standardized coefficients, robust standard errors, and year and country fixed effects. Estimates reveal a positive and statistically significant association between child-related concerns, migration intent and plans. In particular, the probability of individuals having migration intent and plans increases where they report lower levels of satisfaction with child-related issues, as measured by the Youth Development Index, an index driven by indicators of respect for children and satisfaction with the education system. Moreover, children’s well-being affects more individuals living in households with children than those without. Finally, migration is a child- and youth-related phenomenon: young individuals would like to migrate, and plan to do so, more than older individuals.

COVID-19 (coronavirus) leaves few lives and places untouched. But its impact is harshest for those groups who were already in vulnerable situations before the crisis. This is particularly true for many people on the move, such as migrants in irregular situations, migrant workers with precarious livelihoods, or working in the informal economy, victims of trafficking in persons as well as people fleeing their homes because of persecution, war, violence, human rights violations or disaster, whether within their own countries — internally displaced persons (IDPs) — or across international borders — refugees and asylum-seekers. The e-book for this policy brief has been converted into an accessible format for the visually impaired and people with print reading disabilities. It is fully compatible with leading screen-reader technologies such as JAWS and NVDA.

Migration reconfigures care relationships as people adapt to employment, entitlements and care practices in a new context. While a rich genre of analysis of “global care chains” draws attention to how disadvantaged female migrant care workers from the global South fill the “care deficit” in high-income countries, these analyses tend to privilege care services and arrangements in the global North and the migrant as the provider of care. In contrast, there is little research on how migrants from developing countries meet their own and their families’ care needs, irrespective of whether they are paid care workers in the destination. In particular, we know little about the care needs of unskilled or semi-skilled migrant workers and refugees who occupy the less privileged circuits of contemporary global mobility and who are often marginalized from state social policies that address care needs. This paper offers an analysis of the effects of migration on the care needs and relationships of Ethiopian migrant mothers and their families and their access to childcare in destination countries. Specifically, it draws on empirical research on the experiences of Ethiopian migrant domestic workers who have children while in Lebanon and the experiences of Ethiopian women refugees with children who have resettled in Australia.

International migration is an integral part of the development process in countries of origin, transit and destination. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes several targets related directly to international migration or migrants. The most explicit among them is target 10.7, which calls on countries to facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies. Other migration-related targets in the 2030 Agenda include strengthening and retaining the health workforce in developing countries (target 3.c), providing scholarships for study abroad (target 4.b), respecting the labour rights of migrant workers (target 8.8), reducing the costs of transferring remittances (target 10.c), ending human trafficking (targets 5.2, 8.7 and 16.2), establishing legal identity, including through birth registration (target 16.9) and disaggregating data by various characteristics, including migratory status (target 17.18). In addition, international migration can facilitate the achievement of other Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda, including those related to eradicating poverty, facilitating access to health care, education and decent work, and promoting economic growth and gender equality.

Extreme weather events and rising sea levels are having an increasing impact on human mobility, especially within specific countries. In 2022, for example, there were 32.6 million disaster-induced displacements around the world, the highest figure seen in a decade, and 70 percent of these took place in Asia Pacific regions. Policy actors need to anticipate and prepare for future human mobility patterns exacerbated by the effects of climate change to ensure that those who move have their human rights protected and can contribute meaningfully to the communities in which they arrive. Knowing how to anticipate, invest and act on these futures now and needing to react to immediate priorities is, however, challenging. This paper outlines the promise of an anticipatory policy design approach that blends predictive analytics with qualitative foresight to provide the data and space that stakeholders need to effectively adapt and anticipate such events. The approach is introduced here as part of an initiative to analyse the scale and effects of migration to Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam and Karachi, Pakistan by 2050 as a result of the effects of climate change.

The Arab region comprises 22 countries with considerable social, economic, political, cultural and geographic diversity. This diversity is further reflected in the region’s demographic profile, with countries at different stages in the demographic transition, which is characterized by a shift from high levels of fertility and mortality to low levels, largely attributed to advances in healthcare, education and economic development. This statistical brief outlines the Arab region’s demographic profile, highlighting notable similarities and differences among the 22 countries today. The brief further highlights demographic trends that the region has experienced since 1950, such as the overall decrease in fertility and decrease in infant mortality rates, as well as the significant gains in life expectancy, and considers how these trends compare to other regions of the world. Finally, the policy implications of demographic change are explored.

يستطلع هذا الموجز السياساتي الاختلافات في المهارات المطلوبة لأداء عدد من الوظائف في تونس وقطر. ففي تونس، يركّز أصحاب العمل بشكل أكبر على الكفاءات التي تمكّن من أداء وظائف متعدّدة. وفي قطر، تتطلب الوظائف مهارات متخصصة تتّسق مع المجالات التي تنتمي إليها. وبسبب ارتفاع البطالة في تونس، وخاصة بين خريجي الجامعات، يهاجر العاملون المهرة إلى قطر، فيعمل كثير منهم في وظائف تتطلّب مهاراتٍ عالية في قطاعات تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات، والرعاية الصحية، والتعليم، والإدارة. ويوصي الموجز بتوفير تدريب محدّد الأهداف للعاملين التونسيّين قبل الهجرة، وإصدار شهادات معترف بها عبر الحدود الوطنية، وبناء شراكات مع أصحاب العمل القطريين لسد النقص في المهارات. ويدعو تونس إلى وضع برامج لإعادة المهارات إلى الوطن، لمساعدتها على الاستفادة من خبرات المهاجرين العائدين في تطوير القوة العاملة المحلية. ويمكن لهذه الاستراتيجيات، إذا ما نُفّذت، أن تزيد من إمكانيّة توظيف العاملين المهاجرين التونسيين في الخارج، وأن تعزّز النمو الاقتصادي في بلدهم الأصلي.

Thirty years after the Copenhagen Declaration’s landmark commitments to eradicate poverty, promote full and productive employment, and foster social integration, the Arab region remains at a crossroads. Despite progress in health, education, and infrastructure, deep inequalities, fragile governance, widespread informality, environmental degradation, and ongoing conflicts continue to define daily life for millions. Rising climate stresses, shrinking civic space, and the digital divide compound these challenges, underscoring the urgency for a new, justice-driven approach to sustainable development. With the Second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) approaching, the region’s experiences and perspectives hold critical relevance for shaping a more inclusive global agenda. This policy brief distills the insights of the Arab regional consultation convened in May 2025 by ESCWA and UNRISD, which gathered voices from across civil society, academia, and policy circles. It outlines the main challenges facing the region while highlighting the participants’ shared call for a values-based social contract grounded in dignity, equality, and ecological balance. By presenting priority themes and actionable policy recommendations, the brief offers a compelling regional vision to inform the WSSD deliberations. It calls on the summit to move beyond symbolic declarations toward transformative action capable of addressing structural injustices and fostering genuine peace, inclusion, and sustainability.