Child migration and displacement

In 2015, there were 244 million people worldwide living outside their country of birth; 31 million of them were children. Among the world’s migrants are more than 21 million refugees – some 10 million of whom are children – who have been forcibly displaced from their own countries. An additional 41 million people in 2015 were internally displaced due to conflict and violence, and estimated 17 million of those were children.

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Overview

Since 1990, the proportion of international child migrants as part of the world’s child population has remained remarkably stable at just over 1 per cent, but a rising global population means that the absolute number of child migrants has increased in the past 25 years. The same is true for the overall international migrant population, which has remained around 3 per cent of the total population. In 2015, there were 244 million international migrants, compared to 153 million just 25 years before.

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Origin and destination of international migrants

In 2015, 1 in every 70 children worldwide lived outside the country of his or her birth. Like adults, most children who move migrate primarily within their own regions. Globally, more than half of international migrants have moved to another country within the same region where they were born.

Approximately one quarter of all the world’s migrants were born in Asia and live in a different country within Asia; another 17 per cent of international migrants are Europeans who have moved within Europe. Owing in large part to its substantial share of the total population, Asia is also the region of origin for the highest number of migrants who leave their region of birth. In 2015, there were 40 million international migrants born in Asia but living outside of Asia.

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Children, as part of larger population movements, generally end up in higher income countries after they migrate. Roughly 8 in 10 migrants globally move to a country with a gross national income at least 20 per cent higher compared to their country of birth. While 72 per cent of the world’s migrants live in high-income countries, the origins of those migrants are mixed. As shown in Figure 1.9, migrants in high income countries come in roughly equal measure from high-, middle-, and lower-middle income countries. Only 3 out of every 100 migrants in high-income countries was born in a low-income country.

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Where the world’s child migrants live

Nearly 12 million of the world’s international child migrants live in Asia. This represents almost 40 per cent of all migrant children, though it is actually much lower than Asia’s proportion of the global child population (56 per cent of all children). Africa’s proportion of child migrants most closely matches its share of the global child population (21 and 25 per cent, respectively). Together, Africa and Asia host three out of every five child migrants.

Half of all the world’s child migrants live in just 15 countries, led by the United States of America, which is home to 3.7 million child migrants. The countries with the highest numbers of child migrants generally share one of two characteristics. Some, including Lebanon, Jordan and Mexico, have high proportions of children in their overall migrant population (43, 46, and 62 per cent respectively.) In other countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and the United States of America, children are a relatively small percentage of the migrant population but those countries’ overall migrant populations are so large that the total number of migrant children is still quite high.

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Internal Migration

While international migration receives substantial attention in the research and policy dialogue, it is only a small portion of overall population movements. A much higher percentage of the world’s population movements takes place within borders rather than across them. According to the most recent global estimates, by 2005, upwards of 760 million people had migrated within their own countries since birth, nearly four times as many people as had migrated internationally.

Comparable, comprehensive global estimates on internal migration are extremely limited, making it difficult to assess the scale, trends, and impacts of internal migration on children at a global level. This leaves researchers and policymakers to rely on piecemeal studies and data sets and represents a major gap in global migration data. Looking at the available information from the world’s two most populous countries, however, the scale and policy implications of internal migration for children are clear.

In China, there were an estimated 245 million internal migrants in 2013. This followed an explosive growth in internal migration since the turn of the century – in 1982, there were only 6.6 million internal migrants in the country.    This surge in migration, combined with the design of China’s household registration system (hukou), has complicated the migration of parents together with their children. In part because hukou can make it difficult to enroll children in urban schools or take advantage of the public health care system after migrating, many internal migrants leave their children behind when they move.

In 2010, almost 70 million children in China stayed behind when their parents migrated. Another 36 million children moved with their parents. Together, these 100 million children mean that two out of every five children in China were directly affected by migration. Because of the rural-to-urban nature of most internal migration in China, nearly 90 per cent of children who were left in the care of others when their parents migrated were in rural areas, meaning that four in ten children in rural areas were living without one or both parents because of migration.

An estimated 326 million people – more than a quarter of the national population – had moved across India by 2007-2008.  That same year, 15 million children in India were estimated to be living as internal migrants within the country. That number is equivalent to roughly half the number of international child migrants in the world, underscoring just how vital continued analysis of and dialogue about internal migration is for the well-being of children.

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