Migration: facts and figures

This article is 10 years old. Click here to view the latest articles for this topic.

214 million – estimated number of international migrants worldwide.
The total number of international migrants has increased over the last ten years from an estimated 150 million in 2000 to 214 million persons today.
3.1% – percentage of the world’s population who are migrants.
In other words, one of out of every 33 persons in the world today is a migrant (whereas in 2000 one out of every 35 persons was a migrant).
The percentage of migrants has remained relatively stable as a share of the total population, increasing by only 0.2 per cent (from 2.9 to 3.1 per cent), over the last decade.
However, the percentage of migrants varies greatly from country to country. Countries with a high percentage of migrants include Qatar (87 per cent), United Arab Emirates (70 per cent), Jordan (46 per cent), Singapore (41 per cent) and Saudi Arabia (28 per cent).
Countries with a low percentage of migrants include South Africa (3.7 per cent), Slovakia (2.4 per cent), Turkey (1.9 per cent), Japan (1...

Want to see the rest of this article?