Geographic, Gender and Skill Structure of International Migration

This paper presents a new bilateral database documenting international migration stocks by gender, education level, origin and destination. We build on existing databases of OECD host countries in 1990 and 2000 and expand their coverage by collecting or estimating migration to all non-OECD destinations. The end result is comprised of comprehensive 195x195 matrices of international migration for 1990 and 2000, distinguishing migrants by gender and education (college educated and the less educated). This unique database allows us to characterize the origin, destination and education levels of about 100 million adult migrants in 2000, and 80 million in 1990. We identify the main sending and receiving countries and the largest migration corridors. South-North corridors are dominant in 2000, exhibiting the largest growth rates and skill intensity. Accounting for migration to high-income non-OECD countries and numerous developing countries drastically improves our understanding of global migration patterns.