Estimation of annual international migration from the Labour Force Surveys of the United Kingdom and the continental European Union

Abstract

Household surveys are infrequently used for the estimation of international migration. The European Union (EU) Labour Force Surveys (LFS), however, compulsorily include a question on place of residence one year before. Potentially this provides a consistent definition across EU countries for estimating immigration from outside the EU, and for estimating a complete system of intra-EU migration. This potential is evaluated here for all (EU and non-EU) immigrants to the United Kingdom (UK) and for immigrants from the UK to continental EU countries. Evaluation is by comparison with estimates from the UK's port survey, the International Passenger Survey, and from the 1991 and 2001 UK Censuses. The UK LFS estimates the geographical distribution and time trend of total annual immigrants well. It underestimates the level of total annual immigration by 15 to 25 per cent, due mainly to its underestimating immigration of non-EU citizens. In both the UK and continental EU LFSs, returning citizen migrants are better estimated than are new migrants. The continental EU's LFSs exhibit considerable heterogeneity in their capturing of migrants from the UK. Aggregating them therefore results in poor estimation of both the total migrants to continental Europe and their distribution by country of destination.