EUROSTAT
Directorate F: Social Statistics and Information Society
Unit F-1: Population /
Luxembourg, 24.02.2010
Strategic Task Force on Migration Statistics Mainstreaming
(Brussels - 1 February 2010)
Minutes
Item 0 – Adoption of the agenda
The draft agenda for the meeting was adopted.
Item 1 – Introduction: Malta Declaration and way forward
Inna Šteinbuka, Eurostat Director for social and information society statistics, welcomed the participants. Ms Šteinbuka reminded the group that migration continued to be an issue high on the political agenda at both EU and national level, and that there was a resulting demand for good quality statistics on migration and migrants to meet urgent policy needs. The adoption by the DGINS of the Malta Declaration was an important step. Ms Šteinbuka explained the aim of the creation of the Strategic Task Force, highlighting the objectives, composition, working methods and deadlines.
Item 2 - Working procedures
- Item 2.1: Mandate and composition of the Strategic Task Force
Ms. Šteinbuka introduced the draft mandate, and proposed to change slightly the section concerning the objectives. In the original document it was proposed that the participants of the Strategic Task Force would 'assist' Eurostat in preparing the conceptual framework and detailed work programme. It was proposed to remove the word 'assist', and to stress that the conceptual framework and work programme would be produced collectively and jointly by all members of the Strategic Task Force.
The draft mandate was adopted including this change.
It was agreed that the Strategic Task Force would be composed of the Directors of Social Statistics of five MemberStates and Eurostat. The active participation of DG EMPL and DG JLS as statistics users would be important.
- Item 2.2: Ways of working/organization
Niels Ploug (Statistics Denmark) was nominated and accepted the role of co-chair of the Strategic Task Force.
It was planned that the second meeting of the Strategic Task Force would take place in the second quarter of 2010 (June / July). Meetings would be supplemented by discussions using e-mail and CIRCA.
The Strategic Task Force would report on its results to the DSS meeting in September 2010.
It was also decided that the outputs from this first meeting would be reported as an input to the DSS workshop on migration statistics in March 2010.
Item 3 - Update on recent developments since the DGINS conference
- Item 3.1: Evolving policy needs for European statistics on migrants
DG EMPL presented their needs concerning migration statistics. The mainstreaming
of migration was a major issue and far more socio-economic information was needed on migrants. Particular population groups and topics would be of interest (second generation migrants, active citizenship) and would be addressed under the open method of coordination in 2011. DG EMPL emphasised their interest in mobility within the EU (covering issues such as social security for people moving across borders – detailed breakdowns by country of origin would be very helpful), employment, social inclusion as well as anti-discrimination aspects (migrants belonging to specific ethnic groups). It was noted that DG EMPL had funded the Verma Study[1] that corresponded closely to some aspects of the Strategic Task Force draft work programme.
DG JLS, represented by unit B3 (International aspects of migration and visa policy), expressed an interest in migration statistics in partner countries citing, for example,
its activities under the Moldovan mobility partnership, as well as migration profiles in non-EU countries. In this context, JLS had an interest in information on migrant diasporas including second generation migrants. JLS will communicate further its consolidated needs in due time (including contributions from other DG JLS units).
- Item 3.2: Update on related ongoing work in Eurostat
Bettina Knauth gave an overview of the recent developments on migration statistics
in Eurostat
- Item 3.3: Overview of relevant developments at national level
For the UK, Guy Goodwin briefly presented recent developments in national migration statistics. A Bank of England report in 2006 had been critical of the fitness for purpose of the then currently available migration statistics. This was the first time that the suitability of migration statistics as an input to economic and labour market analysis had been assessed.
Mr Goodwin informed the meeting of an ongoing 4-5 year improvement programme for migration statistics. A review of the programme had called for a conceptual framework to be prepared. The resulting UK draft conceptual framework was presented to the meeting.
Mr Goodwin noted that this focussed on the concept of a 'migration journey' but currently did not cover data availability aspects. Work was ongoing on this. One problem in the UK was the absence of a population register as a data source, as well as limited availability of other administrative data.
An academic Centre of Population Change had been established in 2009. The Centre was established to analyse topics such as the reasons for short term migration and the drivers of migration.
Emilia Saleiro from Portugal underlined the need to move beyond simply counting migrants (which was already done) to analysing data and comparing the situation of migrants and non-migrants. The forthcoming round of population censuses would be important – both to provide information on migrant stocks and to inform the sampling approaches for sample surveys. The possibility of using school and university administrative data to examine migrant stocks was addressed.
Linda Laura Sabbadini (Italy) informed the meeting about recent cooperative activities with the Ministry of Equal Opportunities, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labour aimed at improving the coverage of migrants in sample surveys. She underlines the necessity to a general framework that includes the definition of social integration and a set of related main indicators. Moreover she informed about three important Italian experiences:
-Survey on health conditions – poststratification by citizenship, gender and region; interesting results on the health status of migrants;
-EU-SILC – feasibility study – special survey on households with at least 1 foreign citizen; important experience in regard to response rate: (i) refuse rate of non nationals lower than Italians because their higher willingness; (ii) non-response rate higher for some citizenships (e.g. Chinese 60%);
-Survey on social integration – planned for late 2010 – topics: migratory route, employment, household, education, language, social networks, discrimination etc; currently being made focus groups and cognitive test.
Antonio Argüeso described briefly the Spanish National Immigrant Survey conducted in 2007. It was noted that the population registers possibly overcount migrants, with a related problem being the double counting of EU citizens in Spain and in their country of origin.
Particularly in view of the recent economic crisis, much more information was needed on emigration and integration.
Niels Ploug (Denmark) stressed the need to avoid excessive complication. Although some development actions might be difficult and time consuming, there were some 'low hanging fruit' that offered the potential for quick and easy improvements.
Mr Ploug presented on the Danish statistical yearbook and also informed the meeting of
a recent publication on migration issues: Fassman, Reeger, Sievers (edit): 'Statistics and Reality – Concept and Measurements of Migration in Europe’.
Item 4 - Elements for conceptual framework for statistics on migrants
David Thorogood presented the document “Elements for a conceptual framework for statistics on migrants” prepared for the meeting.
The participants discussed in detail particular issues connected with the conceptual framework:
For target groups – ideas discussed:
-The UN definition of migration (12 months) should be kept as a harmonised core definition that was relevant for international comparability;
-short-term migrants would be an important additional count (there was growing policy interest in this group, related to housing needs, schooling, medical care etc.);
-it was important to have sufficient migration-related variables in each survey (country of citizenship, country of birth, date of arrival, country of birth of the parents, reason for migration) to allow the identification of various groups of migrants;
-it would be useful to analyse first the LFS ad hoc module to identify target groups (based on country of birth and country of citizenship, country of birth of the parents);
-existing surveys could be improved by including additional questions. However, the possible negative impact of the longer questionnaire on response rate needed to be considered.
Needs for policy makers – ideas discussed:
-importance of reliability and comparability of data (stocks and flows);
-evidence of the successful integration of migrants as an influence on public attitudes towards new migration flows;
-importance of comparisons between migrants and non-migrants;
Integration of data from different sources – ideas discussed:
-use of administrative registers to calibrate sample survey data (to solve problems with representativeness of samples)
-need to assess the quality of administrative data
-integration of data was potentially difficult. Relatively few countries made extensive use of data linkage;
The importance was noted of drawing upon the experience of countries which successfully applied solutions in the integration of data from different sources (e.g. Netherlands).
Conclusion:
Based on the UK example, Eurostat would produce a draft conceptual framework as a basis for further discussion.
Item 5 - Draft work program
Katarzyna Kraszewska gave a short presentation of the draft work programme. Participants discussed particular points of the document:
1. Adapting existing data sources
Discussed issues:
-Adapting the methodology of existing surveys – this might be more difficult than increasing sample sizes;
-Sampling – The sample size – with a limited number of migrants covered - is problematic in small countries. Similarly, the sampling frame may not cover all migrants;
possible solutions: (i) new sample frames based on censuses (sample sizes to be analysed later), (ii) applying new methods, e.g. small area estimations, (iii) the use of migrant stocks as a stratification criterion (after census – can be discussed by Member States and the Methodology WG);
-Additional questions added to existing surveys (such as additional core variables for the LFS) – while sample sizes and the accuracy of the survey data are an issue, adding questions to a survey might be a very cost-effective way of obtaining additional information.
-Residence permits – further research was needed to build on Eurostat's existing data collection (what data are available on these administrative sources? What further information can be collected?).
2. Developing new data sources
Discussed issues:
-Administrative data – in some cases important quality issues needed to be addressed – these related not just to the accuracy of the data but also to accessibility/suitability of the data for statistical use. The possibility of additional information being recorded in the administrative system also needed to be examined jointly with the organisations that owned the administrative data. Examples were discussed of the addition of
a migrant flag or marker to school census records and to social protection data.
-New migrant survey – integration issues might be better addressed by a specific targeted migrant survey (where the data available from the LFS/EU-SILC and other existing surveys were found not be sufficient); it would be important to draw upon the experience of countries and organisations that had organised targeted migrant surveys.
3. Mechanisms for integrating data from different sources
It was agreed that examples of the successful use of data integration should be researched. Countries which had made use of data integration could be approached to contribute their experience to the work of the Strategic Task Force.
4. Improve communication and cooperation with policy makers
Discussed issues:
-An objective agreed by the meeting was that statistical core variables could be included in administrative registers. This was ambitious but potentially a very valuable step towards maximising the use of administrative data.
-A questionnaire could be used to assess the level of cooperation between NSIs and Ministries.
5.Develop data sharing between national systems
The proposed pilot projects – the proposal was supported by the meeting. Ms. Šteinbuka suggested that researchers be asked to help in preparing case studies. Mr Goodwin informed that some of this work has been already done on a bilateral basis (e.g. UK and PL) and emphasised that the choice of countries needed to be based on objective criteria.
Conclusion:
The draft work programme was considered relatively complete. Based on this first exchange of views, further discussions would aim at rendering some of the proposed actions more concrete and at developing a respective roadmap.
Item 6 – Conclusions and closing remarks
Ms. Šteinbuka summarised the discussion and proposed that the members of the Strategic Task Force should contribute to the ongoing work according to experience and interests. The issues discussed at the meeting and progress made would be presented to the next meeting
of Directors of Social Statistics in March. It was agreed that:
-Denmark would prepare a document presenting their experience of the use of registers and also look at the use of core variables in relation to administrative sources;
-Eurostat would produce a new conceptual framework based on UK one (draft attached in annex). Additionally, national participants were asked to try to prepare their own documents covering their national situation;
-Italy would examine the use of core variables to identify different migration-related target groups;
- DG EMPL and DG JLS would present the main policy needs for information on migration and migrants and their priorities in this area.
Annex 1.
A draft conceptual framework
Figure 1. Migration pathways
Figure 1a. Related monetary flows
Figure 2. Target groups
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Figure 3. Data/Treatment
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[1] Verma study on new survey instruments targeted at people moving across the EU carried out by Professor Verma of SienaUniversity.