Estimating emigration through an emigration module in the census : a proposal for next censuses.
Date: 2006-05-12
Institutions: Eurostat
Subjects: Mediterranean third countries, migratory movement, population census, population statistics, statistical method

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ISSN 1725-065X

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MEDSTAT Programme

Estimating emigration
through an emigration 
module in the census

A proposal for next censuses

E U R O P E A N
C O M M I S S I O N

THEME
Population
and social
conditions

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ISSN 1725-065X

© European Communities, 2006

MEDSTAT/MED-Migr

MEDSTAT – MED-Migr
International migration statistics

Estimating emigration
through an emigration module in the census

A proposal for next censuses 

Reno Camilleri

The views expressed herein are those of the author. Therefore they do not reﬂ ect
any ofﬁ cial opinion of the European Commission.

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MEDSTAT/MED-Migr

Contents

Background ............................................................................................................................................5

Executive summary ................................................................................................................................6

1  The Census and administrative records – their limitations as migration data sources...........8

1.1 

1.2 

Introduction ..............................................................................................................................8

The census ................................................................................................................................9

1.3  Administrative records .............................................................................................................9

2  Bilateral projects, migration surveys and emigration models(4) ............................................11

2.1 

2.2 

Incomparability ......................................................................................................................11

The Portuguese Survey of Departing Migratory Movements. ...............................................12

2.3  General observations ..............................................................................................................13

2.4 

Emigration models .................................................................................................................13

3 

Formulating an emigration module ...........................................................................................14

3.1 

The UN recommendations .....................................................................................................14

3.2  Why an emigration module? ..................................................................................................15

3.3 

3.4 

3.5 

The experience of CELADE ..................................................................................................16

The case of Syria ....................................................................................................................17

Providers of data ....................................................................................................................18

BOX 1 

................................................................................................................................................19

BOX 2 

................................................................................................................................................21

BOX 3 –graphical representation .......................................................................................................24

4  Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................24

References .............................................................................................................................................26

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Background

This paper is intended to present for discussion the case for the inclusion of an emigration module in 
the census of population for estimating out-migration.  It addresses a proposition that has been debated 
for many years and that has been the subject of research projects carried out by Institutions for the past 
thirty years. 

Several countries to-day would not ponder on such a proposal for ﬁ ve main reasons.  

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

 a large group of countries, mainly European ones, have abandoned the traditional census and 
are compiling their population counts from administrative records.  
 the  escalating  costs  of  census  taking  is  making  it  difﬁ cult  for  countries  to  load  their  census 
questionnaires  with  additional  questions.  At  the  same  time,  little  consideration  has  been 
addressed to the comparative cost advantage of including  a few more questions in the census 
against the costs involved in a nationwide migration survey.
 where emigration is not considered as a topic of  national importance, the beneﬁ ts of relative 
information is not considered as a  priority within the local context.
 In several instances, attempts to extract emigration statistics from the census have either yielded 
unreliable results or only partial information and 
 notwithstanding the fact that the census as a source of emigration statistics is the subject of 
discussion papers every now and then, it does not seem to have been addressed sufﬁ ciently well 
in recent years.

Three principal arguments which constitute the main framework of the paper are discussed:

Firstly, the sources employed by National Statistical Institutions, be they statistical or administrative, or 
a combination of both, are not yielding reliable data on emigration.

Secondly,  notwithstanding  that  different  approaches  to  estimate  international  migration  based  on 
the partial use of the census information and migration models have been tried, the situation has not 
improved much and

Thirdly, the census has the potential to yield fairly accurate statistics on international out-migration.

Essentially, the paper is based on research reﬂ ecting the experiences of countries that have tried, with a 
fairly good level of success, to gather information on out-migration during their censuses.  Literature on 
the subject is limited and difﬁ cult to trace and, at times, somewhat dated.  

Moreover, because of the heterogeneity of the methodologies described in parts 2 and 3 of the report, 
comprehensiveness of the proposed module was not a primary objective.  Indeed, the intention was to 
present a workable approach which could be discussed and, as in the case of other census modules, 
adopted to suite individual conditions.

The paper is not primarily addressed to West European countries but to those Mediterranean countries 
within the Medstat group.  The emigration level in both the Maghreb and the Mashrek is still high and 
is likely to remain so for the next thirty years, while no proper socio-economic planning is possible in 
the absence of quantitative data on this important demographic dimension.

It is also considered that the proposal may be of interest to Eastern European countries where population 
movements  are  on  a  large  scale  and  where  the  ‘push’  factors  of  migration  have  been  most  evident 
particularly during the last decade.  

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Executive summary

The  revised  UN  recommendations,  whilst  recognising  the  problems  involved  in  the  collection  of 
emigration data, do not differentiate between migration inﬂ ows and outﬂ ows and generally apply the 
same classiﬁ cations for the two categories of ﬂ ows. They also provide deﬁ nitions of short and long-term 
international migrants.

In practice, governments are more interested in long-term migrations, which effect the socio-economic 
situation of the country. International migrations include both returning and outgoing citizens as well 
as non-nationals. In the light of present migratory movements, which are highly motivated by political 
and economic considerations, countries collect statistics on in-coming migrants and returnees (former 
emigrants)  with  relatively  less  effort  than  they  do  in  respect  of  out-going  migrations  which,  in  the 
majority of cases, are not in any way controlled at the time of departure.  For this reason, such information 
is often partial and unreliable.

Previous  reports  of  missions  carried  out  by  MED-Migr  experts  in  the  Medstat  countries  as  well  as 
research carried out in other European countries identify several types of administrative registers and 
records  which  are  used  for  the  extraction  of  international  migration  statistics.    Since  most  of  these 
were primarily introduced to produce information for control purposes, they are not always considered 
as  suitable  sources  of  international  migration  data.    Furthermore,  much  work  remains  to  be  done  to 
enhance inter-institutional cooperation.

Household based enquiries and other ‘ad hoc’ migration surveys are in some cases considered better 
sources of migration statistics, although these too, have severe limitation.  The former are usually multi-
purpose surveys; the latter may be too limited to capture emigration movements.

The paper deals with four main approaches pursued by countries to establish the international emigration 
movements involving their territories:

  Bilateral projects – these are based on the conceptual basis of migratory ﬂ ows.  Persons 
of  country  A  moving  to  country  B  are  shown  as  emigrants  in  the  ﬁ rst  country  and 
immigrants  in  the  second.    In  the  majority  of  cases,  the  two  statistics  should  tally.  In 
practice, this is rarely so, partly due to time lags in the recording of information or in 
the matching process and partly on account of different deﬁ nitions adopted in different 
countries.    These  deﬁ nitions  are  not  determined  by  statistical  considerations  but  in 
accordance with the legislation of the land.  A lot of work has been done on initiatives 
by Eurostat to identify the causes for these discrepancies, involving several European 
countries.

  The  Portuguese  approach  –  in  itself,  a  survey  carried  out  simultaneously  with  the 
Labour Force Survey, investigating vacant dwellings, which could have been previously 
occupied by departing households or families.  It attempts to identify emigrants by asking 
the  present  occupants  or,  in  the  case  of  vacant  houses,  the  neighbours,  about  former 
occupants of the dwelling since n-1 years.  

  Collecting partial information through the census either from heads of households or 
from siblings and then, with the assistance of statistical models, arrive at emigration 
estimates.    Different  methods  were  devised  and  have  been  the  subject  of  research 
conducted  under  the  auspices  of  the  International  Union  for  the  Scientiﬁ c  Study  of 
Population (IUSSP), and subsequently published by this research Institute. These indirect 
estimation techniques have been expounded by Bilsborrow and others and recommended 
by the United Nations (para.77 of the Revised recommendations). 

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  Collection  of  emigration  statistics  through  a  pertinent  module  in  the  census.    One 
could read about several attempts to gather emigration data during the census in the past.  
The paper makes reference to the censuses held in West African countries, in Swaziland, 
the Caribbean and in some Latin American countries.  More recently, the 1994 census 
held in Syria, the only example within the Medstat group of countries, included some 
questions on emigration. In consonance with this approach, one may also consider the 
census information as a sample frame for other research or speciﬁ c migration surveys, 
usually  household  based.   The  UN  recommendations  on  Migration  Statistics  (Rev.1), 
while emphasising the importance, comprehensiveness and incomparable value of the 
census exercise, do not refer to the census as a primary source for emigration statistics.  
But it is an accepted principle that the census should be designed to meet national needs. 
It is recognised that many countries will ﬁ nd it necessary to include in the census, topics 
of national or local interest in addition to the topics included in the UN recommendations. 
(Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses. Rev.1, United 
Nations 1998, p. 96)  

This last approach i.e. data from a census emigration module is developed further in the paper. It consists 
of three questions and a simple table of information which is completed according to the replies to these 
questions.  In the majority of instances, the completion of the information table is done following the 
reply to only one question.

It is argued that good quality data may be gathered provided the reference period is relatively short. (i.e. 
not more than ﬁ ve years)

The emigration module consists of the following three questions and table: 

Question 1 Has any member of the household emigrated during the past x years?

If yes, go to Question 4.

Question 2  Has any former member of the household (i.e. any person who, at the time of the 
census,  was  not  living  any  more  in  the  same  dwelling  of  the  household  being  enumerated),  
emigrated during the past x years?

If yes, answer also question 3.

Question  3    Did  this  person  constitute  by  himself  or  formed  part  of  another  household  that 
emigrated entirely during the past x years?

If yes, go to Question 4.

Question 4 (Information table).  In respect of the emigrated person/s give:

Person 1

Person 2

Person 3

Person 4

Person 5

Name

Age in years

Gender

Country of 
destination

Year of departure

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The inclusion of an emigration module in the census is an issue that has to be carefully examined during 
the preparatory stages of the census.  It may be more relevant in some countries than in others for several 
reasons, which are discussed in the paper. It has also to be emphasized that the proposed questions have 
to be tested either in a pre-census exercise or in a ‘ad hoc’ pilot survey.

Since the ‘head of household’ is the main respondent in the census exercise, underestimation of out-
migration will result in the case of the former household of an entire family that has emigrated, having 
ceased to exist.  

Fairly good estimates of out-migration, which should include people who are non-nationals, may be 
made on the basis of answers to the ﬁ rst question and the completion of the information table together 
with some adjustments to provide for errors particularly in respect of entirely emigrated households.

1  The Census and administrative records – their limitations as migration data  

sources

1.1   Introduction

The revised UN recommendations on international migration statistics have to be read and understood as 
a long-term objective.  They are not intended to revolutionise present procedures but rather to gradually 
instigate the search for new sources of data, which can produce good quality and harmonized information. 
For this reason, they provide a framework for the compilation and reporting of international migration 
data. They acknowledge also the importance of crosschecking data through reference to several sources, 
be they administrative or statistical ones.

An understanding of the dynamics of international migration has to take into account the two cardinal 
concepts of movement and time.  The ﬁ rst concept concerns the simpliﬁ ed deﬁ nition adopted in the 
1998  recommendations:  an  international  migrant  is  any  person  who  changes  his  or  her  country  of 
usual residence.  The second concept provides a broad classiﬁ cation of migrations by duration of stay.  
In practice, governments are more interested in ‘permanent’ migrations than in those, which are of a 
‘temporary’ nature.  They want to have readily available statistics for socio-economic planning on three 
main topics: 

In-coming migrants:

How many international migrants are admitted annually?
Which are their countries of origin?

How many emigrant citizens return every year?
From which countries do they come?

How many refugees and asylum seekers arrive annually? 

Out-going migrants:

How many citizens emigrate every year?
To which countries do they go?

Net gain/loss

What is the overall annual net gain or loss of a population through international migration?

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This paper addresses the issue of migration statistics from a practical viewpoint.  It concentrates on 
research  carried  out  by  National  Statistical  Institutions,  at  the  same  time,  acknowledging  also  the 
achievements of independent research institutes.  It focuses on two main issues in this ﬁ eld.  In the 
ﬁ rst instance, it will refer to the debate in international fora concerning the unsuccessful attempts of 
National Statistical Institutions to produce statistics on international emigration that generally conforms 
to  the  revised  United  Nations  Recommendations  (1998)  through  the  use  of  administrative  records.  
Secondly, it makes reference to historical instances involving the extraction of international emigration 
data collected during the census of Population and presents for discussion a broad migration module that 
may be proﬁ tably employed in certain countries. 

1.2  The census

The census is still considered as a major source of demographic and socio-economic data.  It affords 
a primary database of the size and characteristics of the foreign segment in populations but is of less 
signiﬁ cance in determining the magnitude and frequency of migration ﬂ ows especially in the case of 
outﬂ ows. A major limitation of the census is that it is generally held every ten years, whereas international 
migration is a continuous sequence of dynamic and erratic events.  Moreover, because of the escalating 
costs and the changing methodology in census taking, National Statistical Institutions have resorted to 
various types of administrative records to compile international migration statistics. In most instances, 
these administrative records and other ﬁ eld enquiries were intended to serve other purposes, which were 
extraneous to statistical considerations.  

For this reason, the production of migration statistics from administrative records is still considered as 
partial, unreliable, incomparable and lends itself to different interpretations. There were countries, like 
Malta and Portugal, which, in the past, had good administrative records of migration statistics.  In both 
cases, these are no longer available.1 During the period 1950-1970, Maltese emigrants were entitled to 
a generous travel grant provided they registered with the Emigration Department. As a rule, emigrants 
applied for the travel grant and the Department maintained good records, which were regularly sent to 
the Statistics Ofﬁ ce. In the case of Portugal, during the period 1941 to 1988, all emigrants were issued 
with an emigrant passport and the National Institute (INE) published emigration data on the basis of the 
number of passports issued.  The pertinent legislation was, however, abolished in November 1988 and 
since then, INE had to resort to an ‘ad hoc’ survey for estimating outﬂ ows. (1)

1.3   Administrative records

The  present  situation  is  that  most  countries  that  still  carry  out  the  traditional  population  census  rely 
on one or more of the following sources to produce statistics on international migration movements 
and then attempt to make a reconciliation with the net migration balance emerging from the census. 
Different countries make use of one or more of the following sources for migration information.

1)  Border statistics.
2)  Population registers.
3)  Work and Residence permits.
4)  Household-based surveys, which include Expenditure surveys, Labour Force Surveys and Health 

Surveys.

5)  Regularisation programmes.

1  Before 1992, citizens of the Russian Federation and of the former Soviet Union needed visas to leave the country.  These records could be considered 

as providing the necessary machinery to gather fairly reliable statistics on the relatively small number of persons allowed to emigrate.

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6)  Main registers such as Deportation records kept by the Police, Departing Emigrants’ records, 

Foreigners’ databases and records of professionals working abroad.

7)  Other  administrative  records  such  as  those  kept  by  the  Tax Authorities,  Business  Registers, 
Employment and Unemployment records kept by departments and other Agencies and records 
of Social Security.

8)  Ad hoc Migration Surveys.
9)  Consular records kept both in the country and overseas.
10) Records kept by and research conducted by Non-Governmental Organisations 
11)  Records of the censuses and passengers surveys held in the destination countries and
12) Records  of  International  Organisations  on  speciﬁ c  categories  of  long-term  migrants  such  as 

refugees and asylum seekers.

In discussing the exhaustiveness and quality of emigration data that National Statistical Institutions are 
producing and publishing on the basis of one or more of the above records, it may be observed that: 

•  These sources may produce information on migration stocks and in some instances on inﬂ ows, 

but are of limited signiﬁ cance for the extraction of outﬂ ows. 

•  The  limited  availability  and  lack  of  international  comparability  of  migration  statistics  pose 
a  severe  constraint  on  any  analysis  of  the  causes  and  consequences  of  migration,  and  on  the 
development of appropriate migration policies that would minimise the adverse effects in both 
sending and receiving countries. (Oberai A.S.1993)

•  Many countries make use of general purpose household surveys2.  In general, one may observe 
that  the  general  purpose  household  survey,  though  a  potentially  useful  source  of  information 
on international migration, rarely provides a reliable indication of the magnitude of the ﬂ ows. 
The main reason being their relatively small sample size.  Even if they are intended to identify 
the whole foreign born and non-national population and not only the ﬂ ows  taking place during 
a period (say, ﬁ ve or ten years), such surveys may prove unsuitable in most cases.  It has been 
observed that the foreign component (i.e. persons born outside the country) has been estimated 
at  less  than  6.5  percent  in  75  per  cent  of  all  the  independent  countries  of  the  world  (United 
Nations 1995). Apart from the coverage limitations, the high standard errors and other statistical 
biases are usually present.

• 

  On  the  other  hand,  surveys  conducted  at  border  crossings  or  through  the  examination  of  a 
sample of border cards usually suffer from problems of sheer volumes of movements that take 
place for many other purposes besides change of address for migration purposes.  It is, therefore, 
difﬁ cult to identify migrations ﬂ ows.  Bilsborrow et al. quote a number of countries that carried 
out  speciﬁ cally  designed  ‘ad  hoc’  migration  surveys  which  however  focused  on  a  particular 
type of migration.  In 1979, Pakistan investigated the emigration of workers to the Middle East 
assuming, amongst other things, that most of them left by air.  Some 12,500 emigrants were 
identiﬁ ed during a three-month period.  These were used as a sample frame to select households 
with  emigrant  workers  abroad.    Here  too,  a  major  problem  was  encountered  in  locating  the 
addresses of the households.  Some 2,400 households were visited to complete 1153 interviews, 
casting doubts on the representativity of the sample.(2)

•  Migration literature provides numerous examples of longitudinal surveys that have yielded good 
results.  These  are,  however,  rather  directed  towards  the  identiﬁ cation  of  the  socio-economic 
determinants of migration than in answering the basic statistical question being investigated in 
this paper: how many? 

2 

These are surveys where the main focus is not the identiﬁ cation and study of international migration.  Most of the more general purpose surveys con-
centrate on collecting data on labour, health, fertility, incomes and expenditure of households.

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• 

International  emigration  statistics  remain  generally  of  poor  quality  and  non-comparable 
reﬂ ecting the little progress that has been achieved so far to have better statistics in this area. 
(3) Present evidence suggests that countries are not enthusiastic about changing their laws and 
administrative regulations governing international migration in order to conform to the new UN 
recommendations. One reason being that most regulations are speciﬁ cally directed towards the 
imposition of controls in other administrative areas (i.e. work permits), which are not directly 
connected  with  migration  issues.  ‘International  migration  takes  place  in  the  realm  of  control 
rather than in that of freedom’. (Garonna P. Op. Cit. p.3)

Some  exceptions  to  these  general  observations  include  cases  where  bilateral  agreements  exist  (e.g. 
Denmark  and  Sweden)  whereby  in-coming  migrants  are  inserted  in  the  population  registers  of  the 
receiving country provided there is conﬁ rmation that their names have been removed from the register 
of  the sending country.  The system could, however, become inoperative in the case of a change in the 
legal deﬁ nition of a ‘migrant’ in any one country, since all types of population registers have a legal 
base.

2  Bilateral projects, migration surveys and emigration models (4)

2.1  Incomparability

The high level of incomparability of migration data on an international level has, in some cases, prompted 
the organization of bilateral projects between two or three countries in order to study the main causes 
of two or more different statistics relating to an identical ﬂ ow between them.  In this connection, it is 
worth referring to two recent projects undertaken by Italy and Belgium and Great Britain and Ireland 
respectively.  In both cases, the researchers were more interested to identify the causes of the existing 
discrepancies than in producing migration ﬁ gures that matched in an approximate way.  

A double matrix of bilateral international migration ﬂ ows was attempted by Italy and Belgium to cover 
ﬂ ows occurring during 1992-1994. (5)  One has to point out at the outset, that the two countries make use 
of administrative records kept by other government institutions for recording population movements. 

Individual migrants recorded by Italy/belgium in 1992 – 94

Emigrants
from Italy to
Belgium
(Italian
statistics)

Actual individuals
recorder by
both countries

Immigrants
to Belgium
from Italy
(Belgian
statistics)

7,700

4,100

7,000

Total: 11,800

Total: 11,100

Source: Eurostat

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In the case of Italy, the Population Registers maintained by the Communes were the main source of 
information, while in Belgium, the information was extracted from the Central Population Register. In 
an attempt to merge the two records, due consideration had to be directed to the fact that no common 
individual identity number  existed so that complete matching of the two different sets of record was 
not possible.  Moreover, registrations in respect of the move by the same person could only be made 
with a considerable time lag in the two different countries. The extent of ﬂ ows from Belgium to Italy 
as recorded by the two countries differed hugely but the ﬂ ows from Italy to Belgium almost agreed.  
However less than 40 % of reported moves between the two countries could be linked.(6)

A second research project undertaken jointly by the Central Statistical Ofﬁ ce (CSO) of Ireland and the 
Ofﬁ ce for National Statistics (ONS) of the United Kingdom was primarily aimed at the enhancement 
of  the  existing  surveys  in  Ireland,  principally  the  Country  of  Residence  Survey,  (CRS)  to  estimate 
migratory ﬂ ows between the two countries.(7) In the United Kingdom, further reference was made to 
information from the National Health Service Central Register (NHSCR) in respect of persons moving 
from one Family Health Service Authority (FHSA) to another as they register with the FHSA and those 
who register after living in Scotland, Northern Ireland or abroad or who intend to live abroad.

At  this  stage,  one  may  mention  the  importance  that  the  CSO  of  Ireland  attaches  to  the  migration 
dimension in the Irish population. Because of the volatility of the migration phenomenon on the rate of 
population change, censuses are taken every ﬁ ve years and the results are carefully analysed against the 
ﬁ ndings of the LFSs.

In Ireland, the LFS is considered as a rich source of data on migration stocks and ﬂ ows.  It was introduced 
in 1975 and since 1983, was held on an annual basis.  In all surveys since the ﬁ rst, questions have been 
asked on:

  nationality and 
  country of residence.

Country of birth and the year of taking up residence for people born outside Ireland were ﬁ rst asked in 
the 1992 survey.  A question on emigration was introduced in 1985.  The wording was: Did any person 
who usually lived in this household emigrate since April 19xx?  This version of the question was also 
asked in 1986 and the following year.  However, because of a perceived understatement of migration, 
the question was softened in 1988 and remains the same up to the present: Is there anyone who usually 
lived in the household since April 19xx is now living abroad?  Information on the individual’s gender, 
age group, country of destination and month of departure was also collected.

How did the LFS data compare with the Census ﬁ ndings?  As one would expect, since the LFS cannot 
capture whole households that have emigrated, the estimates of out-migration derived from the above 
source are an underestimate of the true level of out-migration.  So the only deﬁ nitive source of migration 
data  in  Ireland  remains  the  ﬁ gure  for  net  migration,  which  is  obtained  by  comparing  successive 
population counts from censuses and making allowances for births and deaths within the intersensal 
period.  Nonetheless, the 1986/1991 intercensal comparison estimated the level of underestimation to be 
about 25%.  The use of statistical models allows adjustments to be made for missing wholly emigrating 
households, as Ireland does.

2.2  The Portuguese Survey of Departing Migratory Movements.

In Portugal, a survey that is speciﬁ cally directed towards the measure of out-migration is the Migration 
Survey that uses the same sample as the LFS.  It is an interesting example of a country that attempts 
to collect information even in cases of migration of entire households. As has already been mentioned, 
Portugal abolished the issue of the emigrant’s passport in 1988 and as a result, introduced a migrants’ 

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survey, which provided the ﬁ rst data in respect of 1992.  The survey is carried out simultaneously with 
the LFS every quarter by the interview method.  

The respondents in this survey are those who live in the same dwelling as the emigrant.  In case the 
dwelling is occupied by other people, information is collected either from the new occupants or from 
neighbours. In the case of vacant dwellings, it is incumbent on the interviewer to explore the reasons 
why a dwelling is not occupied and in case it transpires that the vacant dwelling used to be occupied 
by an emigrating household, information is obtained from the neighbours.   In this sense, the survey 
could be referred to as a survey of ‘family dwellings’ since the research is speciﬁ cally directed on the 
occupation of the dwelling.

The question that is asked is: Is there anyone who normally lived in this dwelling on the 31st December 
of year n-1 and who left to live or work abroad during year n? The interviewer then attempts to collect 
information on age, sex, marital status, month and year of emigration, country of destination, previous 
place of residence, type of emigration (temporary or permanent), and nationality.

2.3  General observations

One may observe that:

•  The  Portuguese  on-going  survey  provides  an  example  of  a  country  that  seems  to  be  equally 
interested  in  out-migration  data  in  as  much  as  it  is  in  in-migration  statistics.    In  a  sense,  the 
survey  is  speciﬁ cally  directed  towards  the  occupancy  of  the  dwelling  and  then  proceeds  to 
identify former occupants who may emigrants.

•  The two projects undertaken jointly by Belgium/Italy and the Republic of Ireland and the United 
Kingdom demonstate the problems that are encountered in the compilation of mirror statistics 
and hence the relative incomparability (and quality) of migration data. The compilation of mirror 
statistics set out in matrix form has been proposed some twenty-ﬁ ve years ago by John Kelly.  
The exercise carried out in respect of the 1994 and 1995 data concerning 36 European countries, 
conﬁ rmed that ‘there is still a long way to achieve a minimal comparability level. In a large 
number of countries, the deﬁ nition and the data sources are so different that an harmonisation is 
quite impossible.’ (Bisogno and Poulain 1998). 

•  The  countries  referred  to  make  use  of  different  sampling  frames  for  determining  the  sample 
for investigating migration ﬂ ows. In the case of Portugal, the research was based on a sample 
extracted  from  LFS  data,  while  the  Irish  and  the  United  Kingdom  LFS  itself  represents  the 
sample, which, in turn, is drawn from the population censuses.  In contrast, both Belgium and 
Italy made use of Population Registers.  In Belgium, the Registre National is centralised and 
computerised;  in  Italy  each  Commune,  some  8100  of  them,  keeps  a  population  register  and 
sends information to ISTAT.
In all cases, it was concluded that out-migration data were underestimated mainly due to sampling 
errors and to the weaknesses inherent in small surveys to capture the few events occurring in 
small clusters.  

• 

•  The  surveys  conducted  in  Ireland  and  the  United  Kingdom  concentrated  on  the  composition 
and changes in the household.  In contrast, the Portugese survey was conducted on the basis of 
identifying vacant dwellings, that could be indicative of whole families emigrating. 

2.4  Emigration models

One  reads  also  about  other  approaches  for  the  estimation  of  migration  outﬂ ows  based  on  census 
information.  One approach which was proposed by the Working Group on International Migration of 

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the International Union for the Scientiﬁ c Study of Population (IUSSP), consists of using the information 
on  the  current  place  of  residence  of  persons  related  in  speciﬁ c  ways  to  the  enumerated  persons.    It 
has been used for making estimates of migration outﬂ ow in Latin American countries based on some 
pertinent questions included in their censuses during the 1980’s and 1990’s. Indeed, the Working Group 
formulated two different methods.

The ﬁ rst method is apparently the more straightforward one although subject to problems involved in 
the reliability of the provided information.  It relies on data on the place of residence of the siblings 
of enumerated persons.  For every enumerated person one has to obtain information on the place of 
residence of all brothers and sisters, (reported separately), whether they live in the country of enumeration 
or  abroad.    The  enumerated  person  may  be  included  in  the  list  of  siblings  living  in  the  country  of 
enumeration. 

The reports would show a distribution of the number of persons enumerated by age, the number of same 
sex siblings present in the country and the number of the same sex siblings living abroad. Inputting these 
data into a demographic model, incorporating other variables relating to fertility and gender ratio it was 
found possible to estimate the total number of emigrants by sex and age.(8)

The IUSSP Working Group emphasized the cost element in the gathering of the pertinent information 
during the census.  Moreover, experience has proved that unless the enumerators are well trained, the 
workings will be subject to serious biases which will affect the results.

The second method proposed by the IUSSP Working Group uses the information collected in censuses 
in regard to the reproduction behaviour of women, or the number of children ever born alive and the 
number surviving. The migration model takes into account all mothers aged 15 and over and is based on 
four different categories of emigrants:

(a)  Emigrants with mothers surviving and present in the country of enumeration.  In this case, the 
information is obtained directly about the surviving children and this is considered by far the 
largest of the four categories.

(b) Emigrants with mothers non-emigrants and deceased in which case the information on incidence 

of maternal orphan hood is referred to.

(c)  Emigrants with surviving mothers who also emigrated.  Information may be derived from (a) 

and (b). and

(d) Emigrants  with  mother  emigrated  and  deceased    with  information  derived  from  maternal 

orphanhood as in (b) above.(9)

This method has been tried in several Latin American countries and the Caribbean.  It has been claimed 
that this method produces better results than other indirect methods for measuring migration outﬂ ows.  
Still, the application of this method has to take into account the particular circumstance of the country 
and  need  to  be  validated  by  comparison  with  other  locally  available  migration  data  including  that 
existing in the receiving countries.

3  Formulating an emigration module

3.1  The UN recommendations

The  formulation  of  an  emigration  module  has  to  take  into  account  both  the  core  questions  that  are 
proposed  in  the  revised  UN  recommendations  and  the  expense  involved  in  loading  the  census  with 
additional questions. In formulating a migration module the UN recommendations are only one standard, 
albeit an important one; the more important driver will still be national needs and priorities. Moreover, 

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the elements of speciﬁ city and proportionality are as relevant in this case as they are in the production 
of other ofﬁ cial statistics. 

In brief, there are at least three main difﬁ culties in the implementation of the UN recommendations that 
have to be considered:

•  There is, in the ﬁ rst place, the distinction covering the duration of stay distinguishing between 
short-and long-term migrants.  Another problem here, concerns the different deﬁ nitions on the 
type of migrations adopted by countries. 

•  Secondly,  the  recommendations  seem  to  attach  the  same  signiﬁ cance  to  both  inﬂ ows  and 
outﬂ ows notwithstanding the difﬁ culties in procuring outﬂ ow data. The revised taxonomy (UN 
recommendations para.38) make continuous reference to inﬂ ows and outﬂ ows in regard to the 
presentation of data. 

•  A  third  topic  concerns  the  nature  of  migration  statistics  themselves.    The  Recommendations 
are aimed at the measure of migrations and not at the number of migrants.  If the number of 
migrations and migrants are the same that could mean that the persons moved only once during a 
period but it is known that in several instances people looking for work may move several times 
during a relatively short period.

It is important that the migration module in the census questionnaire should aim at providing information 
not on mobility as a demographic event, thus creating a socio-economic proﬁ le of the immigrant, but 
on the movement/s of the individual so that the two main elements of inter-migration are adequately 
covered:  the elements of time and space.  

3.2  Why an emigration module?

Most States, nowadays, exercise only minimum control or none at all on emigrating citizens and in very 
rare cases impose some restrictions on their long-stay abroad, identiﬁ cation of emigrants is difﬁ cult to 
obtain. There may be sporadic cases where the State requires all prospective emigrants to obtain ofﬁ cial 
clearance or some evidence of their work contract abroad before they leave the country.3  But, in the 
absence of such a declaration on departures, no information source exists that is directly related to out-
migration. ‘On the part of migrant sending countries, the statistical picture is often very sketchy and 
sometimes of no administrative or scientiﬁ c value’. (Bohning R. Op. Cit. Foreward).

Attempts  to  include  an  appropriate  migration  module  in  the  census  aimed  at  providing  information 
on outﬂ ows date back to the beginning of the twentieth century.  Bilsborrow et al. quote the case of 
Swaziland  where  “employed  absentees”  were  to  be  counted  in  the  1921  census.    This  practice  was 
continued in later censuses.  In 1966, an attempt was made to attain a wider coverage by including the 
total  ‘absentee’  population.   All  “people  who  normally  live  in  Swaziland  but  who  were  temporarily 
absent from the country.either studying, working or on holiday or for some other reason were to be 
enumerated.”  The enumeration was directed at absentees who had been away for three years or less and 
whom a responsible occupant of the household expected to return to Swaziland.

The  relatively  brief  reference  period  of  three  years  made  enumeration  easier.    On  the  other  hand,  it 
is not clearly understood why the absentee’s intention to return was deemed an important motive for 
enumeration. This criterion made enumeration more difﬁ cult since it was based on a best of judgment 
assessment of the absentee’s intentions, which had to be made by the respondent. 

3 

In the Czech Republic there is a legal obligation for all citizens to report to the Registration Ofﬁ ce their intention to stay abroad for one year or more.  
Since there are no legal sanctions, this is often ignored.  Vide paper submitted by the Czech Statistical Ofﬁ ce at the Joint ECE-Eurostat Work session 
on migration statistics. Geneva 21-23, May 2001. 

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The example of the Swaziland census is typical of the approaches that were adopted by other countries 
like Botswana, Nepal and Singapore.  The censuses focused also on temporary emigrants that are likely 
to return to their homeland in the future. There is the possibility that those who formulated the census 
questionnaire had in mind the socio-economic repercussions in the event that the country or countries 
had to deal with an inﬂ ux of returnees.

Otherwise, the adopted approach had at least two main drawbacks, which rendered the results subject 
to gross errors.

Firstly,  the  reported  absentees  must  be  considered  as  still  belonging  in  some  way  or  another  to  the 
household.  This qualiﬁ cation lends itself to a high degree of subjectivity in deciding whether a person 
still belongs to the household.  Secondly, those who had left long ago and whose former household had 
disintegrated or in cases where the whole household moved abroad would not be enumerated.  This is a 
problem that is difﬁ cult to eliminate since the absence of an appointed respondent would automatically 
mean non-availability of information.

3.3  The experience of CELADE

Population censuses have proved to be important information sources for understanding international 
migration  in  Latin  American  countries.    In  the  early  1970s,  the  Latin  American  and  Caribbean 
Demographic Centre (CELADE) had strongly recommended the inclusion of a migration module in the 
censuses of all Latin American countries which form a region of frequent migratory movements.(10) 
Attention was directed towards the out-migratory processes in these countries.  It would seem that nearly 
all these countries (some twenty countries in all) have gathered information on international migration 
in their censuses in some form or another. The information was integrated in the research project entitled 
“Investigation  of  International  Migration  in  Latin America  (IMILA).4 A  cursory  examination  of  the 
migration questions used in these censuses reveals the relatively wide spread of information gathered in 
these censuses on both in and out migrations.

Most of the questions were intended to gather data on migration stocks and immigration.  All countries 
asked  for  place  of  birth.  Fourteen  countries  asked  for  place  of  residence  5  years  before  the  census. 
Twelve countries enquired about year of immigration. Other questions dealt with nationality, how long 
persons were living in the same place and previous place of residence.

There were also six countries that included questions on emigration in their censuses held in 1990s.

a) In the case of El Salvador, the 1992 questionnaire featured the following questions:

Is there any member of the household who is living abroad?

How many persons live abroad?

b) The same emigration questions were asked in the 1994 census held in Guatemala, in the 1993 census 
held in the Domenican Republic and the census carried out in Venezuela in 1990.  Several censuses (e.g. 
Paraguay, 1992, Equador, 1990 and Chili, 1992 ) asked for place of ordinary residence of household 
members at the time of the census. 

4 

There were several other organisations or countries that have undertaken similar research projects.  By way of examples, one may mention the Centre 
for the Study and Research on the Population and Development (CERPOD) which had coordinated a project in Western Africa, NIDI in European 
countries, the European Union and the United States.

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c)  The  questionnaire  relating  to  the  census  held  in  Panama  in  1990  incorporated  the  following 
questions:

Is there any member of the household who went to live abroad during the last ten years? If yes, state the 
age, gender, the country of destination and the year when he emigrated. 

In case the person lived abroad and returned during the last ten years, information on year of return was 
requested.  

3.4  The case of Syria

Within  the  MEDSTAT  group  of  countries,  Syria  seems  to  be  the  only  country  that  made  a  serious 
attempt to collect emigration information through the census.  This was in addition to other data on 
migration stocks and inﬂ ows.

In the 1994 census, a question on citizenship was included and information was obtained in respect 
of citizens of all countries. These data were however published under four different headings: Syrian 
Arabs, Palestinian Arabs, Other Arabs and non-Arabs. One has to note the special status that Palestinian 
Arabs enjoy in Syria in that they do not need either a work or residence permit to stay in the country.

A migration ﬂ ow question was also included and referred to previous place of residence.  However, the 
respondent was only required to state whether the place was in Syria or abroad. In order to comply with 
the UN recommendations the 2004 census questionnaire may have an additional question on place of 
residence x years ago.

A supplementary question of outﬂ ows sought information on household members who were abroad at the 
time of the census. Such a question provided only partial information since, whenever a whole household 
were  living  abroad,    no  information  was  obtained.   As  such,  it  was  difﬁ cult  to  make  a  satisfactory 
assessment of the extent of Syrian emigration.  Nonetheless, this module did provide information on 
households affected by international migration due to one or more members who were living abroad at 
the time of the census. The information served also as a sample frame for the special migration survey, 
which was held in 1995. The sample consisted of 1,200 households and as the title of the analytical 
publication issued after the survey (1996) indicated, the objective of this special survey was to assess 
“the impact of international migration on households from which a member left to go abroad”.

The emigration module in the 1994 census consisted of three questions:

Is someone from your household living abroad at the time of the census?

a)  If so, where is he living?
b)  Are the emigrant, and any other person living with him abroad, staying there permanently or 

temporarily?

The  different  approaches  to  compile  international  migration  statistics  referred  to  above,  provide 
interesting examples of different attempts by countries to improve information in this area.  The severe 
limitations concerning out-migration data remain evident and call for further research and discussion 
in this ﬁ eld. The rest of the paper focuses on the inclusion of an emigration module which needs to be 
succinct, easily understood and  simply to complete.

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3.5  Providers of data

In proposing a migration module for the census, the main problem does not concern the information 
itself.  It is rather the difﬁ culty to identify the respondents that are in a position to give the required 
information.  As a rule, it could be assumed that most of the emigrants who leave to settle abroad or 
who intend to return following a period of some years abroad, would have either their parents or some 
relative still living in the country.  Normally, information could be relatively easy to gather in the case 
of unmarried emigrants who were still forming part of an enumerated household at the time of their 
departure.  The real problem of enumeration arises in the case of entire households that left together.

It  could  also  be  assumed  that  most  mothers  can  reply  or  to  provide  information  to  the  question  of 
whether their children are inside or outside the country. Even in cases where all the pertinent information 
concerning age, year of departure and the receiving country cannot be supplied, one has to assume that 
it is the measure of the size of outﬂ ows rather than their structure by age and gender that is of primary 
importance. 

The possibility of double counting has to be carefully evaluated in identifying the more knowledgeable 
respondents.  From  an  administrative  viewpoint,  the  census  questionnaire  has  to  contain  detailed 
information  on  the  way  certain  questions  should  be  answered  and  interviewers  have  to  be  properly 
trained.   It is also suggested that the emigration module in the census should attempt to collect information 
on departures for a period not exceeding ﬁ ve years preceding the census so as to facilitate as much as 
possible the supply of information. 

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BOX 1

Collection  of  emigration  data  in  national  censuses  by  including  speciﬁ c  questions  concerning 
emigrants.

Several countries such as Singapore, Nepal and Egypt have attempted to obtain data on the stock of 
emigrants by asking direct questions in national censuses about absentee members.

The 1980 Census of Singapore (Supplementary Enumeration Schedule C for Absentee Members) and 
the 1981 Census of Nepal both included speciﬁ c questions on emigration (George 1985).  The head 
of household (or any other responsible respondent) was asked to provide information on household 
members who were not present at the time of the census.

In  Nepal,  absentees  were  deﬁ ned  as  those  absent  for  more  than  six  months.   Three  questions  on 
absentees  were  asked:  (i)  number  of  absentees;  (ii)  the  name  of  the  foreign  country  to  which  the 
person had gone and (iii) the reason for moving.......

In the Singapore census, ﬁ ve emigration-related questions were asked. These included (i)citizenship; 
(ii) country currently present in; (iii) date of leaving Singapore; (iv) expected date of return; and 
(v) purpose of staying outside Singapore.  Since no period of absence was stipulated, the absentees 
included temporary visitors.

Although detailed evaluation reports of these experiments in Singapore and Nepal are not available, 
some problems can easily be perceived.  A major problem in the case of Singapore was the lack of 
any  time  speciﬁ cation........Notwithstanding  these  problems,  the  cross-tabulation  of  data  collected 
can  still  be  extremely  valuable  for  studying  the  characteristics  of  emigrants  and  the  reasons  for 
emigration.

But in the case of Egypt, the evidence suggests that the attempt to collect data on emigrant stock from 
‘direct’ questions has ended in total failure.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Extract from the Working Paper by A.S.Oberai entitled ‘International Migration Statistics: Use of 
Census and Sample Surveys’ (ILO) 1993.

The following module consisting of three questions and an information table is being proposed.

Question 1 Has any member of the household emigrated during the past x years?

If yes, go to Question 4.( in table form).

In  this  case,  the  emigrant  must  have  formed  part  of  the  enumerated  household  at  the  time  of  his 
departure during the speciﬁ ed period in the question. It may be presumed that this question will collect 
information:

1.  in all those cases where the emigrant is single;
2.  in cases where the emigrant was married but the family was still living in the same household.  
3.  In this eventuality, information may also be available even when the whole family could have 

emigrated.

In several Mediterranean countries where emigration is directed towards countries that operate family 
reuniﬁ cation programmes (e.g. France and Italy), emigration of the whole family generally takes place 
in two phases It is common for the husband to emigrate ﬁ rst and for his wife and children to join him 

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later.5 In all such cases, where the wife is still in the country of enumeration, information on her husband 
can be supplied.

These  cases  do  not  pose  difﬁ culties  and  the  information  can  be  relatively  easy  to  collect  from  the 
respondent  of  the  census  questionnaire.    Presumably,  information  on  age,  gender,  purpose  of  going 
abroad  (including  study  purposes),  and  country  of  emigration  can  also  be  provided.    The  pertinent 
analysis of the census information may also determine, among other things, whether the person can be 
regarded as a short- or long-term migrant. 

5 

 This is an important characteristic of emigration from South Mediterranean countries to countries in Western Europe.

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BOX 2

Proposed emigration module:

Question 1 Has any member of the household emigrated during the past x years?

If yes, go to Question 4.( in table form)

Question 2  Has any former member of the household,(i.e. any person who, at the time of the 
census, was not living any more in the same dwelling of the  household being enumerated) 
emigrated during the past x years?

If yes,  answer also question 3.

Question 3  Did this person constitute by himself or formed part of another household that 
emigrated entirely during the past x years?

If yes, go to Question 4.

Question 4 (table of items of information in respect of the emigrated person/s give:

Person 1    Person 2    Person 3    Person 4    Person 5

Name

Age (in Yrs.)

Gender

Country of

Destination

Year of

departure

It is important to observe that the correctness of the information depends, among other considerations, 
on the number of years covered by the question.  As a rule, the shorter the period, the better.  In all cases, 
the maximum number may not be more than ten years or the usual intercensal period.  A period of ﬁ ve 
years may also prove sufﬁ cient to make meaningful emigration estimates and any adjustments of the 
previous few years.  It is strongly suggested that those countries that decide to introduce this question for 
the ﬁ rst time should decide on a ﬁ ve-year period irrespective of the length of the intercensal period.

It is envisaged that, if the answer to question 1 is in the afﬁ rmative, the enumerator will be in a position 
to complete the table and questions 2 and 3 will not be relevant.

In other cases, it may be found necessary to ask the following two questions which are complimentary.  
They refer to cases where a former member of the household, deﬁ ned as a person who was not living 
any  more  in  the  same  dwelling  of  the  household  being  enumerated,  had  emigrated.   This  deﬁ nition 
will, in practice, cover cases where a former household member has been living by himself in separate 
dwelling or where an entire family left to settle abroad. In these cases, there is no household member 
present in the country to provide the information and for this reason the former household may be the 
best source from where one may gather the information.

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The two  complimentary questions are:

Question 2  Has any former member of the household,(i.e. any person who, at the time of the census, 
was not living any more in the same dwelling of the  household being enumerated) emigrated during 
the past x years?

If yes, answer also question 3.

Question 3  Did this person constitute by himself or formed part of another household that emigrated 
entirely during the past x years?

If yes, go to Question 4.

It is evident that in cases where the emigrant constituted a separate household (i.e. was living alone) or 
formed part of a separate household that has emigrated entirely, the information is also to be provided 
by the respondent of his/her former household.  Evidently, the information can only be provided if the 
respondent is aware that a former member of his/her household has emigrated; otherwise, no information 
can  be  supplied.    In  case  the  respondent  –  in  census  terminology,  the  head  of  household  –  is  not  in 
a  position  to  supply  the  information,  other  members  of  the  household  may  be  consulted.  The  same 
procedure  would  apply  in  cases  where  the  emigrated  household  consisted  of  more  than  one  person 
(usually a  family) of two former households.  Where the entire family emigrated, the information is 
supplied by the two former households.

In this case, it is important to avoid the possibility of double counting since both households may provide 
the information on the entire emigrated household.  It is being proposed that each household will be 
required to provide the information on its former member or members (who formed part/s of a family/
families). One must emphasise that, a lot depends on the training provided to the census enumerators or, 
in cases where the questionnaire is completed by the head of household, on the information campaign 
prior to the census and other guides on the completion of the census forms..

There may also be cases of households with children that emigrated entirely during the period under 
consideration. In such cases, it is expected that in the ﬁ rst instance, the respective heads of their former 
households will provide the information on the mother and on the father.  But in order to avoid double 
counting of the children, it is being suggested that the respondent of the former household of the wife 
will provide information on the children even in case the wife is dead.

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Question 4(table of items of information in respect of the emigrated person/s give:

Person 1

Person 2

Person 3

Person 4

Person 5

Name

Age in years

Gender

Country of 
emigration

Year of departure

The table covers adequately the main items of information that enable an analyst to construct the core 
tables  recommended  for  migration  ﬂ ows.  Other  items  of  information  may  be  collected  according  to 
the  country’s  speciﬁ c  needs.  Together  with  the  information  relating  to  emigration,  covering  year  of 
departure and country of destination, in most cases, a socio-demographic proﬁ le of the emigrant may be 
built up from the other information gathered on the household members. 

At this stage, one may make two observations.

•  Firstly, those countries that had attempted to collect emigration data in their censuses, usually 
included only the ﬁ rst question in the questionnaire.  The information was collected on the basis 
of  the  suggested  variables  in  the  above  table  with  few  modiﬁ cations  to  suite  speciﬁ c  needs.  
One may also observe that in several instances, the censuses carried out in the 1980s in Latin 
American  countries  collected,  in  fact,  more  information  of  a  demographic  type  that  enabled 
different  methodologies  to  be  beneﬁ cially  employed  in  estimating  emigration  from  these 
countries. The censuses 1990s of the same countries incorporated the ﬁ rst question.

•  Secondly,  the  collection  of  certain  items  of  information  is  being  increasingly  made  on  the 
basis of a sample of the whole population. The UN recommendations mention the gathering of 
information particularly of a socio-economic nature by means of a sample of the population.  In 
accordance with statistical methodology, a sample is relevant when the population to be covered 
is large enough to enable a sample examination.  In some countries with an emigrant/ immigrant 
population of over 5%, a 10-20 per cent sample may give very indicative characterisations of 
international  migration.    Even  in  this  case,  there  are  always  sampling  errors  that  have  to  be 
considered.    In  the  United  States  and  Canada,  the  widespread  availability  of  census  samples 
has enabled the compilation of reports on the magnitudes and socio-economic characteristics of 
international migration. (11)

The graphical representation of the sources of information as described above is being included in 
Box 2. 

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BOX 3 –graphical representation

Case

Emigrating person/s

Respondent/s

1.

2.

3.

4.

The  emigrating  person/s  form/s  part  of 
the enumerated household

The household member providing 
the census information

Emigrated household consisting of one 
or 
more persons of the same former 
household. 

Respondent of former household 
of which the emigrant/s formed 
part.

Emigrated household (without children) 
consisting of members of two former 
households.

Respondents of the two former 
households of the wife and 
husband.

Emigrated household (with children) 
where the parents formed part of two 
former households.

The respondent of the former 
household of the husband will 
provide information on the 
husband while the respondent of 
the former household of the wife 
will provide information on the wife 
and children. 

4  Conclusions

The suggested questions are considered to provide a simple emigration module that may be employed 
with beneﬁ t either to collect primary data on emigration or to test the emigration statistics that are being 
produced on the basis of administrative sources.  It is not known whether this approach has already been 
tried in its entirety in any country.  It is certainly similar in some respects to the emigration modules 
that  have  been  included  in  the  censuses  of  Latin  American  countries.    It  focuses  on  the  gathering 
of  information  on  movements  of  people  without  making  speciﬁ c  reference  to  the  socio-economic 
characteristics of emigration.  Such information could, more proﬁ tably, be collected through surveys. 
The proposed inclusion of question on emigration in the census should be pre-tested or subjected to a 
pilot survey to ensure their usefulness for collecting migration information.

1.  In most cases, only the ﬁ rst question has to be answered provided a relatively short period of 
three to ﬁ ve years (maybe even ten years) is being considered. It is known that in such cases 
errors tend to increase with longer periods. The models referred to earlier in the paper e.g. the 
‘siblings’  approach,  may  prove  more  difﬁ cult,  need  various  corrections  and  will  probably  be 
subject to the same or more acute limitations than the above methodology.

2.  It  has  to  be  conceded  at  the  outset,  that  the  above  arrangements  could  prove  difﬁ cult  to  put 
into practice, unless the interviewers are well trained and given clear instructions. Considering, 
however, certain other more complicated questions such as those related to health issues that are 
included in modern census questionnaires, the migration questions suggested in the paper, are 
not considered as presenting difﬁ culties of interpretation that cannot be solved.

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3.  Difﬁ culties in identifying that most appropriate providers of information may result in under 
enumeration in the case where information on former household members is not available.  On 
the other hand, there is also the possibility of double counting in cases where more than one 
household give the same information.

4.  They may prove of beneﬁ t in places where close family ties exist.  In such cases, one would expect 
that relationships between family members have been maintained.  Such family relationships are 
likely to be more evident in Latin American and other third world countries than in those of 
Western Europe. 

5.  In countries where the level of emigration is sufﬁ ciently high to enable a sample enumeration, 
this could be proﬁ tably employed. Otherwise, one has to weigh very carefully the beneﬁ ts of a 
sample survey against a complete count. 

6.  It is also evident that households in countries with relatively small populations can, more easily, 

provide information of emigration. 

7.  In the case of the MEDSTAT group of countries, this migration module may make sense since 
in several countries there are still close family ties and two of the countries (Cyprus and Malta) 
have relatively small populations.  In the case of Syria, a country with a population much larger 
than that of Cyprus, questions to assess outﬂ ows were included in the 1994 Census.

8.  A census emigration module may be applied in some countries with greater beneﬁ t than in others.  
In the end, it all depends whether a government is interested in having a fairly good estimate of 
out-migration especially in the case of countries where the ‘push’ factors of migration are very 
evident.  In this case, it would seem that the political will is a decisive factor.

9.  Even if the collected information is not considered of high quality, it could serve as a sample 

frame for ‘ad hoc’ migration surveys and further research.

10. The occurrence of double counting in some cases is difﬁ cult to eliminate in a complete way.  
For  this  reason,  one  may  consider  the  inclusion  of  another  item  of  information  in  the  table 
speciﬁ cally directed to identify better the emigrant by providing some more information.  The 
suggested additional question can relate to the name of the town/village of the last residence of 
he emigrant.

11. The use of the census as a source of emigration statistics is often disregarded on costs consideration.  
The feeling is that statisticians may prefer to carry out an ‘ad hoc’ survey outside the census 
exercise, where the sample has to be large enough to capture the emigrating dimension in the 
population.    But  such  an  exercise  is  also  very  costly,  and  the  costs  in  this  case,  have  to  be 
weighted against the additional costs involved in loading the census questionnaire with one or 
two other questions on emigration. It may be found that the non-inclusion of any emigration 
module in the census on this score alone is not justiﬁ ed.

12. The discussion on the determinants of international emigration and the population ‘at risk’ was 
outside  the  scope  of  this  paper.    In  such  cases  the  respondents  are  the  emigrants  themselves 
in their country of current residence.  In accordance with the terms of reference, this account 
focused on the census for the gathering of information on the magnitude (in numerical terms) of 
‘post facto’ events that has necessary to be collected from proxy respondents.

25

MEDSTAT/MED-Migr

References

Paper submitted by the National Statistical Institute of Portugal to the ECE Work Session 
on Migration Statistics, Geneva, 25-27 March 1998.

Bilsborrow et al. International Migration Statistics – Guidelines for improving data collection 
systems. p.241-245. ILO 1997

Poulain M. Paper entitled Presentation of statistical and administrative data sources in Europe: 
what, where and how good? Presented at the MED-Migr Workshop held in Paris 25-27/4/01.  
See also the paper by the same author entitled Is the measurement of international migration 
ﬂ ows  improving  in  Europe?  presented  at  the  Joint  ECE-Eurostat Work  Session  on  migration 
statistics in Geneva 21-23 May 2001.

Eurostat  has  assumed  an  important  role  in  initiatives  of  this  type.    See  Working  Paper  No 
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Enrico Bisogno and Michel Poulain: Working Paper No 11 Checking the reliability and the 
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“A  short  examination  of  the  double  matrices  for  1995  that  covered  33  European  countries 
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(Poulain M.2001

Working paper No.12  entitled  Indicators of migration between Ireland and the United Kingdom 
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For a full explanation of the methodology and the model itself, vide the article by Kenneth Hill 
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Population (IUSSP), 1981

For  an  explanation  of  the  methodology  see  the  article  by  Jorge  L.  Somoza  as  translated  by 
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Economic  Commission  for  Latin America  and  the  Caribbean  (ECLAC)  –  Demographic 
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entitled La Migracion international en los censos de Poblacion.

See Bilsborrow et al.: Op.cit.  Geneva, ILO 1997, p.72/73

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MEDSTAT/MED-Migr

Main Work References

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Council Regulations (EEC) No 3037/90 of 9/10/1990  as modiﬁ ed by Commission Regulation 
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