Articles - Immigrant Profiles & Demographics

Large gaps exist in the social science and public policy research on immigration. Guillermina Jasso of New York University, Douglas S. Massey of the University of Pennsylvania, Mark R. Rosenzweig of Harvard University, and James P. Smith of RAND take an in-depth look at the New Immigrant Survey, which aims to bridge the chasm between information needs and existing data.

Immigration has been a significant factor in New Zealand's history since the mid-19th century, and recently net migration gains have reached the highest levels ever recorded. Richard Bedford of the University of Waikato looks at the challenges ahead.

Portugal, long a land of seafarers and emigrants, is now witnessing increasingly diverse immigration flows, country-wide settlement, and rising immigrant skill levels. Jorge Malhieros of the University of Lisbon takes an in-depth look at the changes.

Very few countries have experienced emigration on a scale approaching that of Cape Verde. Jorgen Carling of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) examines migration's effects on the country's past and present, as well as its implications for the future.

As Russia enters the 21st century, it is confronting a set of migration issues unimaginable just a decade ago. Timothy Heleniak of the World Bank and Georgetown University's Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies maps out the complex past and difficult present of the world's largest country.

The concepts of 'foreign born' and 'foreigner' initially appear identical. However, in an international context, they are used to categorize people in fundamentally different ways. Elizabeth Grieco, MPI Data Manager, explains how these concepts can reflect alternative views of citizenship and discusses what this means for data comparability.