International migration is now a significant driver of population change across Europe but the methods available to estimate its true impact upon sub-national areas remain inconsistent, constrained by inadequate systems of measurement and data capture. In the absence of a population register for England, official statistics on immigration and emigration are derived from a combination of survey and census sources. This paper demonstrates how administrative data systems such as those which capture registrations of recent migrants with a local doctor, National Insurance Number registrations by workers from abroad and the registration of foreign students for higher education, can provide data to better understand patterns and trends in international migration. The paper proposes a model for the estimation of immigration at a local level, integrating existing national estimates from the Office for National Statistics with data from these administrative sources. The model attempts to circumvent conceptual differences between datasets through the use of proportional distributions rather than absolute migrant counts in the estimation process. The model methodology and the results it produces provide alternative estimates of immigration for consideration by the Office for National Statistics as it develops its own programme of improvement to sub-national migration statistics.
Deep Dive into Using administrative data to improve the estimation of immigration to local areas in England.
International migration is now a significant driver of population change across Europe but the methods available to estimate its true impact upon sub-national areas remain inconsistent, constrained by inadequate systems of measurement and data capture. In the absence of a population register for England, official statistics on immigration and emigration are derived from a combination of survey and census sources. This paper demonstrates how administrative data systems such as those which capture registrations of recent migrants with a local doctor, National Insurance Number registrations by workers from abroad and the registration of foreign students for higher education, can provide data to better understand patterns and trends in international migration. The paper proposes a model for the estimation of immigration at a local level, integrating existing national estimates from the Office for National Statistics with data from these administrative sources. The model attempts to circumv
In 2004, the European Union (EU) was subject to significant expansion, with the accession of eight new member states from Central and Eastern Europe plus Malta and Cyprus. In 2006, further growth resulted from the integration of Bulgaria and Romania. The unprecedented inflow of economic migrants that resulted has left few parts of the UK and its economy unaffected by the impact of international migration, supplementing the historical flow of migrants from the New and Old Commonwealth, existing EU member states and other foreign countries (Bauere et al., 2007).
A net inflow of new migrants, both from within and outside the EU has become a feature of demographic change across the UK and a key driver of population growth. National projections for the UK for 2006-11 estimate an annual population increase of 435,000, with approximately 50% due to natural increase and 50% due to net immigration (ONS, 2008a).
As the potential impact of this sustained net inflow of international migrants upon the UK’s population has become apparent there has been increasing political pressure to regulate immigration. In early 2008 the Home Office introduced the first phase of the UK’s new immigration system designed to simplify the process by which migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) come to the UK (Home Office, 2006). The new pointsbased system (PBS) consists of five separate tiers, depending upon the level of skills offered by an individual, with each tier subject to different conditions, entitlements and entryclearance checks. Points are awarded to migrants reflecting their skills, experience and age and the demand for these skills in the UK economy.
Yet despite the increasing importance of international migration to the UK economy, its impact upon local communities and the implementation of the new PBS, there remains no single source of statistics that provides a comprehensive measure of the new migrant population and its many dimensions. Since 2004 there has been much debate on the need for improved intelligence on the volume, profile and geographical distribution of migrant communities (Statistics Commission, 2007;House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs, 2008a&b;House of Commons Treasury Committee, 2008;UKSA, 2009). In addition, in the absence of definitive statistics, regional and local bodies have been encouraged to create their own sources of intelligence on migrant populations, using local surveys, information from employers and recruitment agencies and through the sharing of data with service providers such as the police and health service (Audit Commission, 2007) The necessity for improvements in migration statistics is not an issue that is confined to the UK, with an increased international policy focus on the socio-economic impacts of demographic change. As a dominant driver of population growth, robust estimation of immigration and emigration is key to the production of consistent national and regional population projections for EU countries (Lanzieri, 2007) and the implementation of EU Regulation 862/2007 has provided a statutory basis for greater harmonisation of international migration statistics in Europe. However, although the Nordic countries with their population registers provide the most accurate statistics, harmonisation of data collection remains a long way from being realised (Poulain et al., 2006) with significant issues of coverage and inconsistency between reporting countries (Kupiszewska and Nowok, 2005). Eurostat research, that has attempted to build Europe-wide international migration flow matrices for harmonised reporting and projections, has further revealed the differences in data quality between reporting countries and has shown the use of UK data, even at a national level, to be particularly problematic due to its small sample survey base (Raymer, 2008;Raymer & Abel, 2008).
Creative use of administrative data systems can provide a solution to the problem of migration estimation. In Canada, for example migration statistics are derived from address information recorded by the Canada Revenue Agency’s database of annual tax returns (Statistics Canada, 1998), whereas in Australia net overseas migration is derived from an analysis of data captured directly from incoming and outgoing passenger cards (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006). In the absence of a population register in the UK and with census data ageing rapidly between successive enumerations, official estimates of immigration and emigration relies heavily on data collected through the International Passenger Survey (IPS). Administrative sources such as those operated by the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) to allocate National Insurance Numbers (NINo) or by the Department of Health (DoH) to record registration with General Practitioners (GPs) are now being given serious consideration as alternative inputs to the estimation process (ONS, 2009).
The aims of this paper are: (1) to review the alterna
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