Data themes: International development & migration

Resources for researching international development and migration may include data from subscription databases, publicly available data portals or archived academic projects. Some suggestions are:

Africa Development Indicators  
Annual time series data for over 1,600 indicators. Topics include national accounts, trade, government finance, and external debt.

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO)
A resource for theory and research in international affairs. Access is given to databases, reports, working papers and other outputs in the field of international development. Content is updated monthly.

DEMIG (Determinants of International Migration)
Migration flow, policy and visa databases compiled by the International Migration Institute (IMI).

  • DEMIG C2C (country-to-country) database contains bilateral migration flow data for 34 reporting countries and from up to 236 countries over the 1946–2011 period. It includes data for inflows, outflows and net flows, respectively for citizens, foreigners and/or citizens and foreigners combined, depending on the reporting countries.

  • DEMIG policy data tracks more than 6,500 migration policy changes enacted by 45 countries around the world mostly in the 1945 – 2013 period.

  • DEMIG TOTAL data reports immigration, emigration and net migration flows for up to 161 countries covering various periods of time from the early 1800s to 2011, disaggregating total flows of citizens and foreigners whenever possible.

EUMAGINE data
Imagining Europe from the Outside investigates the impact of perceptions of human rights and democracy on migration aspirations and decisions.

Eurostat New Cronos database  
One of the main aims of this European survey is the collection of statistics on industry, trade consumption and living conditions. Collection of data on population includes categories for international migrations and asylum as well as immigration by sex and immigration by country of previous residence.

International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)
A continuing annual programme of survey collaborations that adds a cross-national, cross-cultural perspective to the individual, national studies. Special topics have included the environment, migration, the role of government, social inequality, the impact of religious background, behaviour, and beliefs on social and political preferences, and national identity. Participating countries vary for each topical module.

Latin American Migration Project
A resource on data and methodology developed during a number of related migration research projects (Mexican migration survey, legalised population survey, health and migration survey) to investigate migration flows into the United States of America and throughout Latin America.

OECD International Development Statistics
The IDS online databases cover bilateral, multilateral and private donors’ aid and other resource flows to developing countries.

Online Historical Population Reports (OHPR or Histpop)
The Online Historical Population Reports (OHPR) collection provides online access to the complete British population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937. It includes a wealth of textual and statistical material and provides an in-depth view of the economy, society (through births, deaths and marriages) and medicine during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is also popularly known as the Histpop project.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
A major source for global monthly, quarterly and annual data and statistics on international development and trade. Issues to do with development and migration are covered in depth. Most of these surveys are made available through the UK Data Service but further analysis and commentary is provided by the OECD iLibrary with direct links to international migration statistics, social and welfare statistics and indicators on demography, migration and population by region.

THEMIS data
Theorising the Evolution of European Migration Systems was a four-year project which took a fresh look at how patterns of migration to Europe develop.

UNDP Human Development Data (1990 – 2017)
The Human Development Index report presents agenda-setting data and analysis on economic, social, political, and cultural issues.

United Nations Demographic Yearbook
The United Nations Demographic Yearbook collects, compiles and disseminates official statistics collected annually on topics such as births and deaths, ethnicity, population size and composition and marriage. Coverage is from 1948 until 2013.

World Bank Development Indicators
A collection of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates. Data comprises over 800 indicators covering more than 150 economies and lists topics such as agriculture and rural development, aid effectiveness, economy and growth, infrastructure and urban development.

World Bank Africa
A networked CD-ROM database containing 1500 indicators of macroeconomic, sectoral and social data, covering 53 African countries. Time series include data from 1970 to 1998. It includes two sets of tables: At-A-Glance and African Development Indicators 2000. It also contains two different tools for data display: Query and African Briefings. Accessing this resource requires you to download the OxLIP+ Thin Client software.

CESSDA Training Group's webinar, Data in Europe: Migration
Introduces information on how to find and access data from European social science data archives and guest presentations introducing different sources of data on migration, giving research examples and discussing some of the challenges working with the data.

Materials from the webinar:

You can find further resources on this theme by using on Databases A-Z or SOLO and subject guides.

Recommendations for additions to these lists are always welcome. Please email the Bodleian Data Librarian with suggestions.