Dr. Marie McAuliffe is the head of the Migration Research Division at IOM headquarters in Geneva and Editor of IOM’s flagship World Migration Report. She is an international migration specialist with more than 20 years of experience in migration as a practitioner, program manager, senior official and researcher. Marie has researched, published and edited widely in academic and policy spheres on migration and is on the editorial boards of scientific journals International Migration and Migration Studies, and is an Associate Editor of the Harvard Data Science Review.
Episode Description
As COVID has ravaged the globe, it's overshadowed another ongoing global story of migration, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration migrants make up 3.5%. of the total global population with the top five countries of origin being India and Mexico China, Russia and Syria that information and more can be found in the IOM 2020 world migration report, that's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Marie McAuliffe.
+Full Transcript
Rosemary Pennington: As COVID has ravaged the globe, it's overshadowed another ongoing global story of migration, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration migrants make up 3.5%. of the total global population with the top five countries of origin being India and Mexico China, Russia and Syria that information and more can be found in the IOM 2020 world migration report, that's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories where we explore the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics I'm Rosemary Pennington Stats and Stories is a production of Miami University's Department of Statistics and media journalism and film, as well as the American Statistical Association. Joining me our panelists John Bailer, Chair of Miami statistics department and Richard Campbell professor emeritus of Media and Journalism and Film. Our guest today is Marie McAuliffe is the head of the migration Research Division at IOM headquarters in Geneva and editor of IOM flagship world migration report. She's an international migration specialist with more than 20 years of experience in migration as a practitioner Program Manager senior official and researcher, McAuliffe has researched published and edited widely in academic and policy spheres on migration and is on the editorial boards of scientific journals international migration and migration studies and is an associate editor of the Harvard data science review marine thank you so much for being here.
Marie McAuliffe : Thank you so much Rosemary and it's a real pleasure to be able to talk about migration. It's a compelling topic, I used to work in industrial relations many years ago. And if you wanted to shut down a conversation with colleagues and people you're meeting in airports and while you're traveling you just mentioned trade union regulation. If you want to start a conversation you just start talking about migration because it is everybody's lives, you know, it's the classic six degrees of separation so it's a real honor and privilege to be talking to you today.
Pennington: What would you consider the headlines of the 2020 migration report.
McAuliffe : Actually it was for the 2020 report and of course the next one that we're currently working on which is the 2022 volume it's going to be released later this year. It's going to be quite different, but for the 2020 volume I was answering media inquiries and doing interviews, and a lot of journalists were a little bit puzzled they're basically saying, so what the report, essentially tells us is that it's business as usual, as usual and there is no major crisis in international migration, and I would be saying yes that's true the trends are kind of like on track, they are what we expect most people do not migrate across borders. During their lives, a very high proportion 96.5% per day within the country in which they're born. The challenge is that displacement especially internal displacement but also cross border displacement takes up a lot of resources around the world. It is very significant from a human security perspective. And so those numbers are often the numbers that we focus on, you know, they're small proportionally but they're very significant in terms of meaningful changes to people's lives and often profound tragedy and loss.
Campbell: You know, one thing that you mentioned is that it was different about these upcoming reports that this report is also used as a fact checking device that serves a role to kind of in reaction to some maybe misinformation or are kind of untrue stories that are being told about my migration. Can you comment a little bit about that.
McAuliffe : Yeah, I mean this is a. Unfortunately it's it's a growing area for our work, we wish that we didn't have to be used as a fact checking, you know, recently, that there was an issue with misinformation and disinformation but it's increasingly being used as a fact checking resource because a lot of that sort of the discussion in social media. Also traditional media but certainly social media has amplified and intensified the problems around disinformation globally. Is that numbers are often a really big focus when it comes to migration, and also displaced populations. So in, in a number of instances for the 2020 report and also the 2018 report. The report prior. The focus on migration statistics and a key kind of art on data and key information has been really useful in dispelling misinformation around the volume and scale of migrants to say that in actual fact, let's try and put this in proportion. You know the world migration report, clearly shows us that you know this displacement events or the number of, and proportion of migrants in a particular country is not, you know, huge, it's not overwhelming. We're not talking about a crisis situation we are talking about a situation that can be managed and he's being managed. Most of the time, we are seeing, you know, pretty balanced reporting in different parts of the world. But of course, when we're talking about interest groups and, and sometimes that goes into political scenarios, there can be a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there, and certainly targeting. You know, particular ethnic minorities is a very considerable problem that's been amplified I think during COVID-19 as well where we've had, You know xenophobic racism ignites in different parts of the world. And again it's completely out of kilter and a lot of it is emotional, but statistics are used as a bit of a weapon in trying to portray some untruths to make political points, and to really use to be used as a power tool to try and diminish. You know the rights of people in different situations.
Bailer: And you talk a little bit about some of the challenges that are faced just gathering this data from different parts of the world. I mean when you look at the impressiveness of this project and especially the interactive project I recommend everybody go to it because it's really cool. It's very cool, that's all. It's awesome.
McAuliffe : It's really good that we actually got a specialist to do that. And he, I think he's, he's one of the, I mean, probably one of the world's best to be honest because he gets involved in terms of the editorial content, and we work on a whole range of different types of interactive components. He's not just, you know, a technical specialist, he spends a lot of time understanding, you know, the data which is really, really important. It's a very significant project in terms of sort of coordination and collaboration, because we are using, as you mentioned, Richard we're using statistics from all over the world. When we use them in very different ways and we are very careful about how we portray them. There's a lot of focus on accuracy, relevance and balance and you know being objective and so forth but accuracy is probably the key thing when we're talking about statistics so for example. As you may know, like we're in our 70th anniversary actually this year IOM, the International Organization for Migration and we were set up as an operational agencies so after World War Two. It used to be a committee that was assisting with, you know, World War Two from Europe and it was only really focused on Europe. We've changed over time but we have a very strong base in terms of operational programmatic data collection, but not necessarily global statistics. So what we do is we try to be very accurate in our global overview by saying this information which looks at resettlement is programmatic data. It's not a global kind of number you know about refugee resettlement. It is, it is programmatic data but it does give you some insights whereas then the global data that we use from a number of different UN agency, though, there's data in there that is global from the UNHCR from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, of course, the International migrants stock data, there's the International Labor Organization data on migrant workers that is global, so we try to make sure that we situate it and represent it accurately, so that it's used as a tool for fact checking or for teaching or for officials when they're doing briefings and so forth of their, you know, ministers and senior officials and it's an it's accurate and correct, but it is an enormous challenge. And it's an enormous challenge because migration. As a demographer, I mean, you know, births and deaths are pretty straightforward, compared to events related to migration because you've got a whole range of movements occurring, that are occurring in real time. And there is, there are very few countries I think are my own country. Australia is one of the few countries that can genuinely collect cross border movements and that's got a lot to do with its geography. To be honest because its border is, is, is, you know, it's an island, it's isolated, and it has very specific sort of arrangements around cross border movements, but most countries, actually, they don't know. They can't tell you at any particular point in time. How many international migrants or travelers or visitors actually are in their countries, which does frighten some people but that's just, you know, the honest truth.
Bailer: I thought it was interesting. Earlier when you're talking about displaced people versus my migrants, and I, I almost think of it that you know one thing that came to mind for me is, is the idea that there's both voluntary and involuntary migration. And that's, that's a, it's a really interesting question about kind of, you know, when I think about this place you're kind of being. If that sounds like involuntary forced move versus the, the idea of migration for other other reasons, can you talk. I know that some of the things that you mentioned is that, that, that the report addresses issues of patterns and processes and trends. So, I guess one. So now I'm going to ask a multi part question. So the question is, as I think about this, what can you talk a little bit about some of the causes or, or processes that lead to migration. And then as kind of, then follow that up with kind of some of the patterns and trends that may have been observed.
McAuliffe : Definitely. We tend to talk. I mean, there's the discussion around sort of drivers, there's a whole body of, you know, long standing research in regards to the gravity model the push and pull, ravenstone 1886 1987. Moving into kind of the enabling factors because there's much greater recognition of, you know, self agency of migrants, that they're not just pushed and they're not just pulled but they actually have a lot of ability to make decisions and act on those decisions in different situations. So we've kind of seen a lot of migration theory developed over many years, though we do tend to talk. Now, also because it's not necessarily about sort of problematizing if I can use that for migration as a problem that it is just you know a social and economic phenomenon, but it's not necessarily a problem so we tend to talk more these days about drivers. And there's much greater recognition of, you know, the multiple motivations and multiple factors involved underpinning migration, as well as moving more and more away from the kind of binary construct around forced and voluntary migration or involuntary involuntary migration so there's probably for about the last sort of 20, years, there's been much more of a discussion around the spectrum. In regards to agency, my extra my doctoral research is, is, is on this particular topic and it's. It was focusing on self agency of a group of refugees Hazara is from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran traveling down to Australia refugee refugees I mean a very high finally to grant rates, under the Refugee Convention of between 96 and 100% across five program us so that's about as high as you can get real genuine refugees and they would engage in major self agency extraordinary resilience to be able to get to Australia by boat sometimes traveling through up to seven transit countries. Many of them, traveling by themselves or in groups with other young Hazara males have enormous amounts of resilience, very dangerous journeys at times, extremely unsafe, and yet they're refugees. So, these are not people who have been displaced. These are people who have engaged in major migration journeys. So there's, there's a lot more recognition
Pennington: You're listening to Stats and Stories and today we're talking with Marie McAuliffe , the head of the migration Research Division at the International Organization for Migration and editor of IOM flagship world migration report, Marie when I was looking at the 2020 report and the interactive visualizations, which as Richard mentioned are really really lovely and I just think are really helpful to help understand this, there was a section that talks about migration corridors. And I was wondering if you could explain what a migration corridor is and maybe how how you've seen them change a bit, as, as you've been involved in this work.
McAuliffe : Here the migration corridor When was it used, it was a component that we added to the 2018 volume it's not one that is is typically kind of constructed in in migration research and analysis and statistics, but it is sort of a cumulative picture of some of the key corridors around the world and they relate to what the UN describes as an international migrant which is foreign born, so you can be so included in the international migrants stopped statistics and be a refugee you might have been displaced across the border you might have been recognized as a refugee and then you settle for example, it doesn't go into credit policy category, it doesn't go into the type of migrant whether you're a student, whether you're a migrant worker whether you're reuniting with your family under a family reunion program or anything like that. It's really just about foreign born, and it is cumulative so what we can see is that over time, based on the UN Desa international migrants stock data we can see where those really big corridors exist. So that, the largest one in fact we've just pulled the data for the next volume, and we were looking at it today with my team, the biggest corridor by far is Mexico to the United States, and globally. So what we've done in the 2020 volume is, and you learn from your mistakes, to be honest, because in the regional chapter we've done those migration corridors for all of the six un regions. But so many times I've wanted to actually look at it globally, and we didn't produce it, we didn't put it into the global chapter. So this time we're fixing that so that we can actually use it in our work and and use it in our, you know presentations and our discussions and so forth. But it was very interesting to see how those corridors have changed and unfortunately. One of the really big corridors that's in the top 20 it's right up the top actually is Syria to Turkey. Yeah. Now I've been working on migration for so long that I recall you know writing a whole lot of briefings. When I was working in the Australian Government in Syria as the third largest host country of refugees in the world, it used to host mainly Iraqis. So, they would be the third or, you know, you'd be doing briefings, you know, every few months, every quarter and so forth and it would always be Syria would be number three. Syria is now the number one origin country of refugees, of course. But that corridor is so significant, it's in the top 20 of all global corridors for 2020 for the current data, and that is Syria to Turkey, it's a huge, huge corridor that has opened up, and it's one that only very few migration specialists and academics, at the time at the beginning of the Syrian conflict so you know the potential for very significant displacement, and most didn't but but a couple that who I work with, they did actually pick it and say that this was going to be a particularly bad displacement sort of scenario and ongoing conflict, so that that's kind of like the sad side of it and that is a very significant change in what otherwise a quite long term trends and long term patterns of migration, around the world. It could you talk a little better in the report.
Campbell: This is probably on the good side of the report. You talked about, ignoring migrant contributions in this topic of remittances. That's really fascinating. I didn't know anything about this. And that data is really interesting and how do you even get that data. Let's talk about what remittances
McAuliffe : Remittances are collected by the International Monetary fund's that's where the kind of the primary data set is. There are two types of international remittances they're reported in as part of balance of payments from governments from central banks. And there are two types of remittances international remittances there are like salaries and payments that are made and then there are personal remittances so quite often, when we're talking about remittances in a development context, international development context, the narrative is that a migrant worker, from a developing country will go and work in developed country, you know, a wealthy industrialized country and send back remittances to family members who will be able to, you know, pay for food for shelter, I mean that's a particular kind of issue in in certain parts of the world like Central Asia, you know, Tajikistan and other countries are very reliant on international remittances for poverty alleviation so for basic needs, but also they support education education of children as well as broader family members and so forth. But then there's kind of like other aspects to it as well. And this is something that we pull out of the report or kind of. Did you know the type of little snapshot? Where did you know that, Switzerland, is, is one of the largest one of the largest countries in terms of receiving international remittances, as well as you know sending internet remittances, and Germany also receives enormous amounts of remittances and so forth, it's it's it's it's really interesting because it's cross border workers. It's people who are actually in Europe and move, working in one country and living in another and so forth and so on. luxembourgers by share of GDP one of the largest in terms of outflows of remittances in terms of GDP. Because it's not just developing and developed contexts. It's much more sort of broadly so I think, For the last report I think France was number six mainly from Switzerland. So France was the number six country of international remittances inflow so receiving international remittances, and Germany was number nine and again that's because of Switzerland. Though the money went out of Switzerland into French bank accounts of residents in France, I'm sitting here in Geneva. And you know, a hospital system the medical system is people who reside in France, basically. So, and the same in Zurich it's mainly people who live in Germany. So their cross border workers Now COVID has really impacted that very significantly and the World Bank who does a lot of work on international remittances in a migration context projected that there would be a 20% decline of international remittances in 2020 because of COVID. Now you're obviously related to people losing their jobs during COVID so migrant workers wouldn't be able to send back money back home, but also because of you know people being stranded people having to return engage in return migration because they couldn't stay in the Gulf or various other places, and having to return. What we have seen is we've seen something quite different. So, we've been tracking this really closely and we've seen some of the largest monthly remittance inflows treated to traditional kinds of receiving countries on record. Especially mid year, so sort of July, August we saw countries posting very substantial increases in remittances. A couple of reasons for this which is a bit of a surprise so the World Bank has adjusted its projections. There'll be reporting, we'll be watching very closely, we're doing a lot of analysis for the world migration report on this particular topic, but we have reduced the projection to 14% for 2020 from 20 down to 14%, because what we started to see is we started to see some central banks posting very significant increases now why is this occurring How could this be the case. When you look back at SARS and it moves there is a particular phenomenon in previous kind of pandemics where, if a country is in crisis, you will see diaspora in migrant workers, sending money home because if they can to help families deal with crisis situations. Haven't obviously seen anything on the scale of COVID-19. But there are other things that are actually occurring. So when you trawl through a lot of the, you know investigative journalism, as well as central bank reporting you see different dynamics occurring, the number of people that usually travel back, carrying cash, you know, back into Pakistan Pakistan have been reporting this through their kind of analysts and so forth, pretty clearly back into Nepal back in in India people carry cash home it's informal remittance channels that have been quite significant now with the mobility restrictions. We've seen a very significant increase in digitalization and moving through into formal channels. So things like Bangladesh have been trying to get more people into formal remittance channels for a couple of years. But COVID-19 has really changed the whole dynamic so there is an absolute necessity to move into formal channels because otherwise you won't be able to get money home to your family. So, and of course that's good for governments because, you know, increases the formal channels, they can know you've got a much better system in terms of moving out of informality and formality. And being able to sort of tax people based on their returns and income and so forth. And we're also seeing changes in terms like the Philippines, for example, has had a massive increase in terms of online banking again. Many to digitalize. So we're seeing really big changes around digitalization. It's very clear in in the remittance kind of situation but there are a whole range of other aspects to do with migration and mobility where digital digitalization is dominating and not in such a positive way I would say,
Bailer: Well, let me just just personalize this just for a second, you know, what do you like best about what you're doing, and how did you know how someone would get involved if they wanted to do migration research.
McAuliffe : I mean, I really enjoy kind of the analytical aspect, working with a really strong team and also collaborating with researchers from all over the world. So, for one of the chapters. I'm working with a one researcher in the US, one in China, and one in Kenya, and we're collaborating on, you know, a thematic chapter, which is intensely interesting and really challenges some of the orthodoxy around some of the narratives that we that we hear around migration by looking at the data, it's just a donut chart. Looking at the analysis of what the data is telling us and being open to that. Whereas a lot of the times in in migration research, there are particular constructs and if you are trying to do something that is a little bit unorthodox like looking at migration journeys of refugee refugees like convention refugees, people that feel a bit confronted by, you know what you're trying to do, and what you're trying to really explore and understand basically to look at the complexities and to be open to those complexities to say well actually it's not as simple as we uphold or it's not as simple as some people may sort of portray you know they, these people as ours are not fleeing for their lives they are engaging in major major migration journeys that you know they lose their lives during many have lost their lives. So, that aspect I find you know is really fascinating and very compelling. And it's also the things that bring us together to make us realize that, you know, I might be an Australian but I've got so much in common with the you know the migration experiences and journeys and what people having to do in Pakistan, you know, in Singapore. In Malaysia, in Latin America, you know, in Venezuela in Colombia in Colombia his decision on regularization is profound and I think even some of my colleagues don't really understand that that is an enormous policy change, and an incredibly positive one that will have intergenerational impact. That's one thing I meant as a visa officer actually because I used to run visa programs and in draconian government overseas. And one thing that I really learned very quickly is that one decision around a visa, whether that was you know a student visa or a visitor visa or whether it was to migrate as a spouse or something like that has impact, not just on that person, but on that person's family and on their community as well. And that is something that kind of like that shared experience. If you look and learn it as a visa officer, but then you magnify that and you scale. You can quickly see 1.7 million Venezuelans in Colombia have the opportunity to be regularized and are going to change people's lives for decades to come. And it's that's, I mean it's probably one of the most positive policy decisions I've seen in a long time in a long long time and we don't celebrate it enough and we don't recognize it for what it is that's an area I think that we could be getting ideas for doing further research. But that's an area where we can actually try and quantify what that actually means you know for quality of life but also for quantity as well. across time and I don't think that that's an area that people have really looked at in a, in a policy context, it does tend to be here and now it does tend to be fairly kind of narrowly thought through and you know having worked for a government you are required to sign up to basically national interest. So, one of the real challenges and one of the things that I really like about working in the UN and for IOM is that you can rise above that, you know, singularity around national interest and you can look at the broad, you know, mutual interest on a very large scale.
Pennington: Well that's all the time we have for this episode of Stats and Stories Murray thank you so much for being here today.
McAuliffe : Thank you very much indeed. Rosemary I've really enjoyed it and to john and Richard thanks so much.
Pennington: Stats and Stories is a partnership between Miami University’s Departments of Statistics, and Media, Journalism and Film, and the American Statistical Association. You can follow us on Twitter, Apple podcasts, or other places you can find podcasts. If you’d like to share your thoughts on the program send your email to statsandstories@miamioh.edu or check us out at statsandstories.net, and be sure to listen for future editions of Stats and Stories, where we discuss the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics
The views expressed in this podcast are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of the IOM or its member states.