page_title: Human migration
section_title: Definitions
hierarchical_section_title: Human migration / Definitions
caption_attribution_description: English: The number of migrants in the world 1960-2015. See note from World bank below for details. "International migrant stock is the number of people born in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees. The data used to estimate the international migrant stock at a particular time are obtained mainly from population censuses. The estimates are derived from the data on foreign-born population--people who have residence in one country but were born in another country. When data on the foreign-born population are not available, data on foreign population--that is, people who are citizens of a country other than the country in which they reside--are used as estimates. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 people living in one of the newly independent countries who were born in another were classified as international migrants. Estimates of migrant stock in the newly independent states from 1990 on are based on the 1989 census of the Soviet Union. For countries with information on the international migrant stock for at least two points in time, interpolation or extrapolation was used to estimate the international migrant stock on July 1 of the reference years. For countries with only one observation, estimates for the reference years were derived using rates of change in the migrant stock in the years preceding or following the single observation available. A model was used to estimate migrants for countries that had no data."
context_page_description: Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another
  with the intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location. The movement is often over long distances and from one country to another, but internal migration is also possible; indeed, this is the dominant form globally. People may migrate as individuals, in family units or in large groups. There are four major forms of migration: invasion, conquest, colonization and immigration.
  A person who moves from their home due to forced displacement may be described as a displaced person or, if remaining in the home country, an internally displaced person. A person who is seeking refuge in another country can, if the reason for leaving the home country is political, religious, or another form of persecution, make a formal application to that country where refuge is sought and is then usually described as an asylum seeker. If this application is successful this person's legal status becomes that of a refugee.
  In contemporary times, migration governance has been closely associated with State sovereignty.
context_section_description: The distinction between involuntary (fleeing political conflict or natural disaster) and voluntary migration (economic or labor migration) is difficult to make and partially subjective, as the motivators for migration are often correlated. The World Bank estimated that, as of 2010, 16.3 million or 7.6% of migrants qualified as refugees. This number grew to 19.5 million by 2014 (comprising approximately 7.9% of the total number of migrants, based on the figure recorded in 2013).
  At levels of roughly 3 percent the share of migrants among the world population has remained remarkably constant over the last 5 decades.
  Nomadic movements are normally not regarded as migrations, as the movement is generally seasonal, there is no intention to settle in the new place, and only a few people have retained this form of lifestyle in modern times. Temporary movement for the purpose of travel, tourism, pilgrimages, or the commute is also not regarded as migration, in the absence of an intention to live and settle in the visited places.
  Structurally, there is substantial South-South and North-North migration; in 2013, 38% of all migrants had migrated from developing countries to other developing countries, while 23% had migrated from high-income OECD countries to other high-income countries. The United Nations Population Fund says that "while the North has experienced a higher absolute increase in the migrant stock since 2000 (32 million) compared to the South (25 million), the South recorded a higher growth rate. Between 2000 and 2013 the average annual rate of change of the migrant population in developing regions (2.3%) slightly exceeded that of the developed regions (2.1%)."
caption: The number of migrants in the world 1960–2015.[8]
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