The Globalization of International Migration? A Conceptual and Data-Driven Synthesis

Abstract

Although the globalization of international migration is commonly accepted as a general tendency in contemporary migration patterns (de Haas, Castles, and Miller 2020, 9), the corresponding body of empirical evidence is mixed and fragmented. Our review of global migration patterns over the past half-century highlights how the theories, expectations, and ultimately findings may vary depending on the specific definitions, vantage points, and measures being used. In this paper, we provide a simpler and integrated account of the globalization of international migration that includes a corresponding empirical template to quantify the relative importance of two processes at work: the intensity and connectivity of international migration. Using recent estimates of country-to-country migration flows every five years from 1990–1995 to 2015–2020, our analysis using demographic decomposition and group-based multitrajectory modeling highlights the dynamic relationship between intensity and connectivity from both the global and country vantage points. Our work in this paper provides a starting point in the form of a much-needed empirical template, one that is also highly flexible and customizable, for future research on the globalization of international migration to coalesce around and use going forward.