The number of international migrants is estimated at 281 million people in 2020, that’s 3.6% of the world’s population, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) published in 2022. Entitled “The State of Migration in the World”, the 592-page document specifies that these are 146 million male migrants (51.9%) and 135 million female migrants (48.0%).

The international body attached to the United Nations informs, in a review of this specific population, that Europe is currently the largest destination for international migrants with 87 million people, or 30.9% of the international migrant population. It is closely followed by Asia with 86 million people, or 30.5%. This is followed by North America with 59 million people, or 20.9 per cent, and Africa with 25 million people, or 9 per cent.

The majority of migrants are workers

Men and women most often move from one part of the globe to another to find work. This is also confirmed by the report, which notes that in 2019, the number of migrant workers in the world was estimated at 169 million out of a total number of 272 million international migrants. This accounted for almost two-thirds (62%) of the world’s international migrant population that year. The 2022 report reviewed by Dialogue Migration focused on these latest statistics to analyze the movement of migrant workers.

The results indicate that in 2019, 67% of migrant workers – approximately 113.9 million people – resided in high-income countries, 49 million (29%) in middle-income countries, and 6.1 million (3.6%) in low-income countries. The concentration of international migrant workers living in upper- and upper-middle-income countries remained stable (86.4% in 2013, 86.5% in 2017, and 86.9% in 2019).”

In addition, the report highlights “the share of migrant workers in the total labor force, which is relatively low in low-income (2.3%), lower-middle-income (1.4%) and upper-middle-income (2.2%) countries, but much higher in high-income countries (18.2%)”.

These statistics show that more than half of the people who leave their countries of origin to migrate to other countries do so for the very specific purpose of finding decent work or simply work.

The number of women on the rise

The report also indicates that male migrant workers account for 58.5% (98.9 million) compared to 41.5%  women (70.1 million). A surplus  of 28.8 million men to be placed in a context where the number of men of working age among international migrants is higher than the number of women (128 million, or 52.1%, against 117.6 million, or 47.9%). This represents a slight shift since 2013 towards a migrant worker population where the gender gap is even wider, with men accounting for 55.7% of the migrant worker population and women 44.3%.

The USA, first destination and India first supplier in the world

The IOM report, which also looks at the points of departure and arrival of migrants, states that the United States remains, as it has for half a century, the number one destination for 51 million international migrants. This is almost triple the number of migrants welcomed by Germany (16 million), which is the second destination listed by the document. Saudi Arabia (13 million), Russia (12 million) and the United Kingdom (9 million) complete the list of the top five destinations for international migrants in the world.

On the other hand, India is the country with the largest number of nationals abroad. This country became at the end of April 2023 the most populous country on the planet according to the UN with an estimated population of 1.4286 billion inhabitants (against 1.4257 billion inhabitants for China). Mexico, which has some 11 million immigrants, is behind India in terms of nationals abroad. Russia comes in third place (about 10.8 million outside the country), closely followed by China (10 million Chinese living abroad). The fifth largest country of origin is Syria, where more than 8 million nationals live abroad, mainly as refugees due to massive displacement over the past decade with the war.

Remittances: in 20 years, an increase of more than US$500 billion on the inflows of migrants

Addressing the economic impact of migration flows from one corner of the globe to another, the IOM report highlights the link between paid work and earning money. Indeed, when migrants succeed in settling in their host countries, it is often to work there and in return to send a large part of their income to their relatives and parents who remain in the countries of origin. As defined by the World Bank, “remittances are financial or in-kind transfers made directly by migrants to their families or communities in their country of origin”. While stressing that the said financial institution treats global data on international remittances taking into account the innumerable gaps, differences in definition and methodological difficulties encountered in collecting accurate statistics.

Moreover, IOM’s 2022 report points out that the data provided by the World Bank “does not take into account unrecorded flows that go through formal or informal channels, so the true scale of remittances globally is likely higher than available estimates.” However, says IOM, which used World Bank remittance data in its recent report, “despite these problems, available data show a long-term upward trend in recent years, with international remittances rising from US$ 128 billion in 2000 to US$ 702 billion in 2020″.

In the years leading up to 2020, global (incoming) remittance flows increased by an estimated 7.2 % between 2016 and 2017 (from US$597 billion to US$640 billion), by 8.4 % between 2017 and 2018 (from US$640 billion to US$694 billion), and 3.6% between 2018 and 2019 (from US$694 billion to US$719 billion).

In line with this trend, remittances to low- and middle-income countries (which account for the majority of global remittances) declined in 2020 (from US$548 billion in US$20-19 billion to US$540 billion), following the positive trend observed from 2016 to 2018 (from US$441 billion in2016 to US$478 billion in 2017, then to US$ 524 billion. in 2018).

Africa does not receive the largest share of remittances

In debates and media publications on migration, there is a tendency to paint African migrants as great looters of Western economies by their substantial remittances to their countries of origin. According to IOM’s 2022 report on the State of World Migration, sub-Saharan African countries are not even in the ranking countries receiving remittances.

“In 2020, India, Chile, Mexico, the Philippines and Egypt were (in descending order) the top five countries to benefit the most from remittances. India and China were a distant leader, each with more than US$ 59 billion of repatriated funds,” the report said.

Better still, in 2020, two G7 countries, France and Germany, were still among the top ten beneficiary countries in the world, a ranking they have occupied since 2005, the report says. The document nevertheless specifies that the majority of inflows are not transfers to households, but the wages of cross-border workers who work in Switzerland, while residing in France or Germany.

High-income countries, however, are the main source of remittances. For decades, the United States has consistently been the world’s largest source of remittances (US$68 billion in 2020), ahead of the United Arab Emirates (US$43.24 billion), Saudi Arabia (US$34.60 billion) and Switzerland (US$27.96 billion).

Along with its status as the largest recipient country, China (classified by the World Bank as an upper-middle-income country) has also been a significant source of international remittances: US$15.14 billion in 2019, and US$18.12 billion in 2020, IOM says.

Since the mid-1990s, international remittances have far outstripped official development assistance, defined as government assistance to promote the economic development and well-being of developing countries. In the specific case of a country like Senegal, remittances represent 46% of the financing obtained from abroad by the Senegalese economy, according to the Ecofin agency. There is $2.7 billion recorded for remittances from abroad, $1.6 billion from foreign direct investment (technical and financial partners) and $1.5 billion from official development assistance. We are far from the $59 billion recorded by China and India.