1. The European perspective
UN Recommendations :
The European perspective
Michel POULAIN
UNSD NEW YORK
4 December 2006

2. Important facts for EUROPE
Europe is a continent where national borders are progressively disappearing.
Europe faces an increasing number of immigrations and is considered as a favourite place for asylum seekers.
Europe is a continent where the censuses are to be replaced progressively by an intensive use of administrative registers

3. Intense use of administrative data sources
In Europe, international migration statistics are mostly dependant on administrative data sources. A population registration system is operative in 19 out of the 27 EU countries and most of the non-EU countries.
International immigrations and emigrations are respectively captured through registrations or deregistrations in the system and these are currently done through self-declaration following national administrative rules

4. Consequences of this intense use of administrative sources (1)
The definition of usual residence is not strictly applied and some legal rules are usually followed in order to decide who is or not officially resident in the concerned country and therefore is registered in the population registration system.
The time criterion in order to identify an international migration is based on intended duration of stay but the considered period is variable depending the country (from 8 days to 1 year) while in a lot of countries no specific duration of stay is necessary to proceed to registration or deregistration.

5. Consequences of this intense use of administrative sources (2)
Even if administrative rules apply the registration system is essentially based on self-reporting for both immigrations and emigrations. As a consequence of that, the existence of advantages and disadvantages to be registered of deregistrered, most of these being financial, may have a large impact of the level of coverage
In practise emigrations are clearly less covered compared to immigrations and a level of less than 50% coverage of international emigration may be found in a significant number of countries.

6. Consequences of this intense use of administrative sources (3)
Among all advantages is the fact that flows and stocks are managed by the system on a fully consistent way.
Moreover the population registration system, when centralised, give the unique possibility to assess the de facto duration of stay or duration of absence for each immigrant or emigrant.

7. Other data sources used in European countries
Residence permit database or foreigner registers are potential additional data sources for estimating international migration flows.
Specific registers are also devoted to record and follow all citizens living abroad.
Census data may also be very useful for estimating international migration flows.
Surveys are also used to provide statistics on international migration flows.

8. Key issues for implementing in a proper way the UN recommendations in Europe are:
The definition of the usual country of residence
The duration of stay criterion
The reason for migration
The correct registration of emigration for both citizen leaving for abroad and immigrants returning in their home country
The overall reliability of the data collection due to the fact that self-reporting is the common rule
The need for concrete practical recommendation for implementation when using administrative registers.

9. Comparing the three basic way for measuring immigrations
Entering a country with the intention (and the right) to live in the country at least 12 months.
Having entered the country (legally) 12 months ago and being identified as immigrant after one year de facto residence
Enumerated in census at time t+1 as living abroad one year before at time t.

10. > 12
T+1 T

11. > 12
< 12
T+1 T

12. > 12
> 12
< 12
T+1 T

13. > 12
> 12
< 12
< 12
T+1 T

14. > 12
> 12
< 12
< 12
< 12
T+1 T

15. > 12
> 12
< 12
< 12
> 12
< 12
T+1 T

16. > 12
> 12
< 12
< 12
> 12
< 12
T+1 T