Arkadiusz Wiśniowski

Utilising Expert Opinion to Improve the Measurement of International Migration in Europe

Abstract In this article, we first discuss the need to augment reported flows of international migration in Europe with additional knowledge gained from experts on measurement, quality and coverage. Second, we present our method for eliciting this information. Third, we describe how this information is converted into prior distributions for subsequent use in a Bayesian model for estimating migration flows amongst countries in the European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA). The article concludes with an assessment of the importance of expert information and a discussion of lessons learned from the elicitation process.

Integrated modelling of age and sex patterns of European migration

Summary Age and sex patterns of migration are essential for understanding drivers of population change and heterogeneity of migrant groups. We develop a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate such patterns for international migration in the European Union and European Free Trade Association from 2002 to 2008, which was a period of time when the number of members expanded from 19 to 31 countries. Our model corrects for the inadequacies and inconsistencies in the available data and estimates the missing patterns. The posterior distributions of the age and sex profiles are then combined with a matrix of origin–destination flows, resulting in a synthetic database with measures of uncertainty for migration flows and other model parameters.

Migration from New-Accession Countries and Duration Expectancy in the EU-15: 2002–2008

European Union (EU) enlargements in 2004 and 2007 were accompanied by increased migration from new-accession to established-member (EU-15) countries. The impacts of these flows depend, in part, on the amount of time that persons from the former countries live in the latter over the life course. In this paper, we develop period estimates of duration expectancy in EU-15 countries among persons from new-accession countries. Using a newly developed set of harmonized Bayesian estimates of migration flows each year from 2002 to 2008 from the Integrated Modelling of European Migration Project, we exploit period age patterns of country-to-country migration and mortality to summarize the average number of years that persons from new-accession countries could be expected to live in EU-15 countries over the life course. In general, the results show that the amount of time that persons from new-accession countries could be expected to live in the EU-15 nearly doubled after 2004.

Applying and testing a forecasting model for age and sex patterns of immigration and emigration

International migration flows are considered the most difficult demographic component to forecast and, for that reason, models for forecasting migration are few and relatively undeveloped. This is worrying because, in developed societies, international migration is often the largest component of population growth and most influential in debates about societal and economic change. In this paper, we address the need for better forecasting models of international migration by testing a hierarchical (bilinear) model within the Bayesian inferential framework, recently developed to forecast age and sex patterns of immigration and emigration in the United Kingdom, on other types of migration flow data: age- and sex-specific time series from Sweden, South Korea, and Australia. The performances of the forecasts are compared and assessed with the observed time-series data. The results demonstrate the generality and flexibility of the model and of Bayesian inference for forecasting migration, as well as for further research.

Comparative Study of Active Ageing in China and the EU Countries

In this chapter, the AAI for China is calculated by using the 2011--2012 data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Its findings reveal the unrealized potential of Chinese older population comparing to countries in the European Union (EU). It is argued that social policies should aim at enabling older people to maintain quality of life and contribute to the family, the economy and society. What can be safely recommended includes: (1) flexible retirement plans for older population to voluntarily participate in labour market; (2) an efficient community based old-age care system and lifelong learning system to enable the older population to enjoy active, independent, secured and healthy life.