Migration between Canada and the United Kingdom: A comparison of unadjusted and adjusted data

Abstract

There is a serious lack of international comparability in available statistics on international migration because of important inter-country differences in the definition of an international migrant, in the coverage of data sources and in the methods of collecting and tabulating the statistics. Although the United Nations recently published revised recommendations on international migration statistics which, it is hoped, should eventually contribute to the resolution of these problems, unfortunately thus far few countries have attempted to determine whether they can comply more fully with them.

This article describes an exploratory bilateral study undertaken by statisticians in Canada and the United Kingdom in which they investigated the possibilities of adjusting both country's data on the flow of migrants from the United Kingdom to Canada in order to determine whether each country's data could be made to conform more closely to the international recommendations. The results obtained are encouraging, for even though there are also differences between the adjusted data of both countries, the study demonstrates that closer compliance with the international recommendations is possible, feasible and perhaps less difficult to achieve than many countries may think.