A New Profile of Migrants in the Aftermath of the Recent Economic Crisis

Growing international migration and diverse characteristics of migrant populations make internationally comparable high-quality data on migrants essential. Regular update of these data is crucial to capture the changes in size and composition of migrant populations. This document presents the first results of the update of the Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries for 2010/2011. It describes immigrant and emigrant populations by sociodemographic characteristics and labour market outcomes in the OECD, and shows their evolution in the past decade. It also provides updated emigration rates and brain drain figures. Countries with the highest emigration rates are typically small and island states. Emigration rates of the highly educated are higher than total emigration rates in majority of the countries, highlighting the selective nature of migration in terms of educational attainment. Brain drain is higher in low-income and lower-middle income countries than others, which is not the case for total emigration rates.