The New Migration Statistics: A Good Choice Made by the INE (Spanish Institute for National Statistics)

The Spanish Institute for National Statistics (INE) has decided to create new Migration Statistics (Estadistica de Migraciones) based upon Residential Variation Statistics (Estadistica de Variaciones Residenciales). This article presents arguments to support this decision, in view of the continued lack of consistency found among the sources of the Spanish statistics system for measuring population mobility. Specifically, an insight is provided into the problems of underestimation and internal inconsistency in the Spanish Labour Force Survey when measuring immigration rates, based upon discrepancies identified in the three international immigration flow series produced by this survey. Adapted from the source document.