International Migration Policies: Government Views and Priorities
1.4. CHARACTERISTICS OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS Migration tends to be selective by age, sex, level of education and other characteristics. Migrants tend to be younger and healthier than their non-migrating counterparts. For instance, in a sample of seven European countries, immigrants between 20 and 29 years of age constituted between one third and one half of all immigrants arriving in 2008 and 2009 (Roig et al., 2008). At the global level, in 2013, the median age of all international migrants is 38.4 years, compared with 29.2 years in the total population. The median age of migrants is higher than that of the general population due to a smaller proportion of children among migrants. Moreover, in some destination countries newborns are not considered immigrants (principle of jus soli). The median age of migrants is higher in countries in more developed regions (42.2 years) than in less developed regions (33.2 years). Examining by region, international migrants living in Africa and Asia tend to be younger (median age of 29.9 and 33.6 years, respectively) than in Europe, Northern America and Oceania (median age is 42.3, 42.2 and 43.4 years, respectively) (figure 1.4). Figure 1.4. Median age of international migrants and total population by major area, 2013
50
International migrants 42.3
Total population 43.4
42.2
40.9
40
37.7
36.7
Median age (years)
33.6 30
20
29.9
32.8 29.7
28.3
19.4
10
0 Africa
Asia
Europe
Latin America Northern America and the Caribbean
Oceania
Source: United Nations, Global Migration Database. http://esa.un.org/unmigration/.
Globally, seven out of ten international migrants are of working age (20 to 64 years) (figure 1.5). Because international migrants tend to comprise higher proportions of working-age persons compared to the overall population, migration contributes to reducing old-age dependency ratios (the number of persons aged 65 years or over divided by the number of persons aged 20 to 64 years) in destination countries. Despite this effect, the old-age dependency ratios of countries in more developed regions are projected to continue to increase.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs ‍ ׀‏Population Division
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