MUMBAI: India is the origin of the largest number of international migrants – around 18 million, with large diasporas living in UAE, US and Saudi Arabia. It continued its march as the top country receiving remittances, but 2022 was spectacular with the figure crossing the $100 mark.
According to the World Migration Report, 2024, released in Dhaka today, by UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM): “In 2022, India, Mexico, and China were the top three remittance recipient countries, followed by the Philippines, France and Pakistan.”
In 2022, India received $111 billion, the first country to reach and even surpass the $100 bn mark.In 2020, it had received $83 billion.
Mexico, with inward remittances of $61 billion was the second-largest recipient in 2022, in the previous year it had replaced China to occupy the second spot and continued to hold sway.
China’s inward remittances in 2022 were $51 billion. The contraction of remittance flows to China and its slipping to third spot has been attributed to multiple factors, including demographic shifts that have resulted in the shrinking of the working age population and the country’s zero-COVID policy, which prevented people from travelling abroad for work. During 2022, India’s other neighboring countries Pakistan (rank 6) saw an inflow of nearly $30 billion and Bangladesh (rank 8) received $21 billion.
Top countries receiving remittances
| 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2022 | ||||
| India | 53.48 | India | 68.91 | India | 83.15 | India | 111.22 |
| China | 52.46 | China | 63.94 | China | 59.51 | Mexico | 61.10 |
| Mexico | 22.08 | The Philippines | 29.80 | Mexico | 42.88 | China | 51.00 |
| All figures are in US dollars ($) and in billions | |||||||
The report points out that international remittances have recovered from the dip in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Migrants sent an estimated $831 billion in international remittances globally in 2022, an increase from $791 billion in 2021 and significantly more than $717 billion in 2020.
Migration corridors:
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In 1970, there were just 84 million international migrants, which translated to 2.3% of the world’s population. In mid-2020 (which is the latest available data) nearly 280 million people lived in a country other than their country of birth, constituting 3.6% of the world’s population.
The size of a migration corridor from ‘country A’ to ‘country B’ is measured as the number of people born in ‘country A’ who were residing in ‘country B’ at the time of the estimate. The Mexico to United States corridor is the largest in the world at nearly 11 million people. This is followed by the Syrian Arab Republic to Türkiye, and Russian to Ukraine corridors attributed largely to displacement of people owing to civil unrest and invasions.
Top destination countries for Indians: Popular migration corridors
| Destination country | No of Indians (as of mid 2020) |
| UAE | 3.47 million |
| USA | 2.72 million |
| Saudi Arabia | 2.50 million |
The India-UAE corridor is the fourth largest. An interactive map released by IOM shows that there were 3.47 million Indians in the UAE, followed by 2.7 million in the US (which was the sixth largest international migration corridor) and 2.5 million in Saudi Arabia (which occupied ninth position).
The report does not separately reflect the top source countries of inward remittances to India, but understandably it would be from the top diaspora countries. Incidentally, the US and Saudi Arabia were the top two countries in the list of those sending remittances overseas. During 2022, $79 billion and $39 billion flowed from the US and Saudi Arabia to other countries.
Top three countries of origin
| Year: 1995 | Year: 2020 | ||
| Country | Diaspora | Country | Diaspora |
| Russian Federation | 11.38 million | India | 17.79 million |
| India | 7.15 million | Mexico | 11.07 million |
| Mexico | 6.95 million | Russian Federation | 10.65 million |
Net migration flows:
Net migration is the difference between the inflow of migrants into the country as opposed to those who migrate from the country overseas.
For ten countries, the estimated net outflow of migrants exceeded one million over the period from 2010 through 2021. In many of these countries, the outflows were due to temporary labor movements, such as for Pakistan (net flow of −16.5 million), India (−3.5 million), Bangladesh (−2.9 million), Nepal (−1.6 million) and Sri Lanka (−1.0 million).
Interestingly, India, which had the largest diaspora of nearly 18 million (1.3% of the global population) occupied the thirteen rank as a destination country, hosting 4.48 million migrants (0.3% of the global population).
Students:
Countries in Asia are the origins of the largest number of internationally mobile students in the world. In 2021, more than 1 million internationally mobile students were from China, by far the highest number globally and more than double the number of students from India, which ranks second (around 508,000). The US is the largest destination country for internationally mobile students in the world (more than 833,000), followed by the UK (nearly 601,000), and Australia (around 378,000).
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