Basic requirements for using a household survey to produce good quality migration data

1. Basic requirements for using a household survey to produce good quality migration data Dean H. Judson, Ph.D. Immigration Statistics Staff

2. Presentation Outline • A Bit of History • Guiding Principles to Measuring Migration • Our Data Sources • Questions We Ask • Citizenship • Year of Entry • Place of Birth • Change in Residence

3. A Bit of History

5. Guiding Principles

6. U.N. principles for improving migration statistics • Three general problems recognized: • Missing data (for example, data on emigration) • Incomplete data (for example, data on undocumented migrants) • Inconsistent data (for example, data on temporary migrants) • A crosswalk of operational definitions for immigrant stocks and flows • Foreign-born, foreign background, country of usual residence, long-term migrant, short-term migrant • Common definitions of new migrant typologies needed • Temporary, circular, labor, irregular migrants • A compilation of emerging practices for measuring temporary and illegal migrants

7. Some practical principles • Know exactly what you want to ask • Legal and social context • International context • Ask as little as possible • Respondent burden versus overly simplified questions • Ask about today if you can • Recall bias • Some questions must be asked • Be careful about sensitive questions • Migrant legal status • Religion

8. Three Data Sources

9. The Questions We Ask

11. Citizenship

12. Citizenship Question • Used to estimate total number of foreign born in the United States • Foreign born serves as a proxy for “international migrant” • No ability to distinguish between “short-term migrants” and “long-term migrants” using this question • Enumerates person (migrant), not event (migration) • Country of citizenship (where person is not a citizen of the U.S. or holds dual citizenship) is not asked

15. Year of Entry

16. Year of Entry Question • Asks year of entry into the United States • Frequently used as a proxy for date of arrival • Problematic for people who have entered more than once • Differences in interpretation of question • Year of Arrival (first; most recent) vs. Year of Entry (first; most recent)

18. Source: ACS 2005, S0502: Selected Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Population by Period of Entry into the United States

19. Place of Birth

20. Place of Birth Question • Used to estimate number of foreign born who are born in a particular country or region of the world • Previous country of usual residence is not asked; place of birth may serve as a proxy • Boundary changes require reclassification of some responses

22. Parental Nativity and Generational Status

23. CPS Nativity Question Screen

24. Parental Nativity Question • Reflects U.S. legal definition of citizenship, where children of citizens are citizens • Allows measurement of the demographic impact of foreign born • Parents born abroad may still be U.S. citizens • We do not know how people with adopted children from overseas answer this question

27. Foreign born (dark blue) and Children with at least on foreign born parent (light blue)

28. Residence One Year Ago

29. Measuring migration by asking about change from a fixed time period, “one year ago”.

30. Residence One Year Ago Question • Asks country of prior residence if person lived in a different place one year ago • Can be used to estimate international migration (events) and migrants (persons) • No information for people under 1 year old • No residence rules on prior country • Used as proxy for previous country of usual residence

31. Residence One Year Ago and Year of Entry (in thousands) ‘Year of Entry’ is prior calendar year Residence abroad one year ago

32. Only a fraction of people who arrived last year or who resided abroad a year ago report BOTH (in thousands) “Residence Abroad One Year Ago” 1,124 “Year of Entry Was Prior Calendar Year” 1,218 703 421 797

33. Interaction of Three Time Frames: Numerical Year, “One Year Ago”, Survey month Year of Arrival Survey Year Only half of respondents who arrived during the previous year will report having lived abroad “one year ago”. The survey will capture only half of potential respondents who arrive during the survey year, all of whom lived abroad one year ago. Lived Abroad 1 year ago Lived in USA 1 year ago

34. Conclusion • Different questions plus different survey design = different interpretation • Migration questions are complex; often more complex than simple survey questions can capture • It is difficult to “ask about today” with migration questions • Nonetheless, the potential data are very rich