The remittances of migrant Tongan and Samoan nurses from Australia

BACKGROUND: Migration and remittances are of considerable importance in the small Pacific island states. There has been a significant migration of skilled health workers in recent decades to metropolitan fringe states, including Australia and New Zealand. This paper reports the findings of a re-analysis of survey of Samoan and Tongan migrants in Australia where the sample is split between nurse households and others. METHODS: The study analyzes the survey data with a view to comparing the remittance behaviour and determinants of remittances for nurses and other migrant households, using both descriptive, cross-tabulations and appropriate econometric methods. RESULTS: It is found that a significantly higher proportion of nurse households sent remittances home, and, on average remitted more. Remittances of nurse households did not decline significantly over time contrary to what has generally been predicted. This was in contrast to other migrant households in the sample, for whom remittances showed a sharp decline after 15 years absence. Remittances contribute much more to the income of migrant sending countries, than the cost of the additional human capital in nurse training. CONCLUSIONS: Given the shortage of nurses in Australia and New Zealand, and therefore the high demand for immigrant nurses, investment by Pacific island governments and families in nurse training constitutes a rational use of economic resources. Policies encouraging investment in home countries may be more effective than policies directly discouraging brain drain in contributing to national development

Overcoming the problems of inconsistent international migration data: a new method applied to flows in Europe

Due to differences in definitions and measurement methods, cross-country comparisons of international migration patterns are difficult and confusing. Emigration numbers reported by sending countries tend to differ from the corresponding immigration numbers reported by receiving countries. This paper presents a method to achieve harmonised estimates of migration flows by comparing the differences in data reported by both sending and receiving countries. For each country we estimate one adjustment factor for immigration and one for emigration in such a way that the adjusted immigration and emigration numbers are closer to each other than the numbers reported by sending and receiving countries. A number of specific origin-destination flows have to be considered separately since the adjusted numbers are not consistent with each other. For these cases we introduce additional constraints. Our methodology is illustrated for migration between 19 European countries from 2002 to 2007. The methods compensates for both cross-country differences in definitions and the effects of measurement errors due to e.g. under reporting and sampling fluctuations. The results represent a reliable and consistent set of international migration flows that can be used for understanding recent changes in migration patterns, as inputs into population projections and for developing evidence-based migration policies

Integrated modeling of European migration

International migration data in Europe are collected by individual countries with separate collection systems and designs. As a result, reported data are inconsistent in availability, definition and quality. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian model to overcome the limitations of the various data sources. The focus is on estimating recent international migration flows amongst 31 countries in the European Union and European Free Trade Association from 2002 to 2008, using data collated by Eurostat. We also incorporate covariate information and information provided by experts on the effects of undercount, measurement and accuracy of data collection systems. The methodology is integrated and produces a synthetic data base with measures of uncertainty for international migration flows and other model parameters.<br/

Migration Systems in Europe: Evidence From Harmonized Flow Data

Empirical tests of migration systems theory require consistent and complete data on international migration flows. Publicly available data, however, represent an inconsistent and incomplete set of measurements obtained from a variety of national data collection systems. We overcome these obstacles by standardizing the available migration reports of sending and receiving countries in the European Union and Norway each year from 2003–2007 and by estimating the remaining missing flows. The resulting harmonized estimates are then used to test migration systems theory. First, locating thresholds in the size of flows over time, we identify three migration systems within the European Union and Norway. Second, examining the key determinants of flows with respect to the predictions of migration systems theory, our results highlight the importance of shared experiences of nation-state formation, geography, and accession status in the European Union. Our findings lend support to migration systems theory and demonstrate that knowledge of migration systems may improve the accuracy of migration forecasts toward managing the impacts of migration as a source of social change in Europe