Trend in International Migration Flows and Stocks,1975-2005

This paper discusses broad trends in the rates and levels of international migration over the past threedecades, the places that migrants leave from and the destinations they choose and some of thedemographic and policy implications of these trends. It raises some features of international mobilitytrends over the past three decades that are, superficially, somewhat contradictory: stable rates of emigrationbut growing numbers of emigrants and an apparent dynamism in the flow but a stable concentration ofmigrants going to more developed nations. On the one hand, these facts can be somewhat simply resolvedby reference to the demographic divide between the less and more developed world. On the other hand,these facts hold implications for the past and future impacts of admission policies on internationalmobility.