Global Migration – Key Facts & Recent Trends
The number of international migrants grew to 281 million in 2020, meaning that 3.6% of the world’s people lived outside their country of birth that year, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM). The increase came despite widespread restrictions on travel and international movement in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are eight key facts about international migrants, based on the latest available data from the UN and other sources.
Europe and Asia have the most international migrants.
The United States has more international migrants than any other country.
India remains the top origin country for the world’s migrants.
Remittances – the money that migrants send to their home countries – decreased by about $11 billion from 2019 to 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic arrived.
India has been the world’s top receiver of remittances since 2010. Remittances to India grew from $53 billion in 2010 to $89 billion in 2021.
The number of displaced people in the world rose to a new high of 89.4 million in 2020. Displaced people are those forced to leave their homes due to conflict, violence or disasters. They include refugees, asylum seekers, and people internally displaced within their country of birth.
The share of international migrants who are men has ticked up in recent decades.
A majority of the world’s international migrants lived within their region of origin in 2020.
