EU Migrants in other EU Countries: An Analysis of Bilateral Migrant Stocks

This briefing provides an overview of the numbers of EU migrants in different EU countries. It also analyses data for the “net migrant stock” between different countries, i.e. the number of people from country Y living in country X minus the number of people from country X living in country Y. For instance, it compares the number of Spanish migrants in the UK with the number of UK migrants living in Spain. All data and analysis in this briefing refer to the year 2010.

This briefing is updated when new data becomes available.

EU migrants accounted for 35% of the total migrant stock in the EU countries as a whole in 2010. In some countries EU migrants accounted for over 70% of the total migrant stock. This share was 31.7% for the UK.

EU migrants accounted for 35% of the total migrant stock in the EU countries as a whole in 2010. However, as shown in Figure 1, there is considerable variation in this share across EU countries. In some countries EU migrants accounted for over 70% of the total migrant stock: Luxembourg (80.7%), the Czech Republic (80.2%), Slovakia (78.3%) and Ireland (73.2%).

In the UK, the share of EU migrants in the total stock of migrants was 31.7% in 2010. This puts the UK below the EU average and in the 16th place out of the 27 EU countries.

Figure 1

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The EU countries hosting the largest number of EU migrants in 2010 were Germany, Spain, France, the UK and Italy. The EU countries with the largest number of people in other EU countries were Romania, Poland, Italy, Germany and the UK.

The average number of EU migrants living in EU countries in 2010 was about 622,000 per country. This number masks important differences across EU countries. Figure 2 presents the stock of EU migrants in each EU country. Some countries host over 2 million EU migrants, such as Germany (3.7 million), Spain (2.5 million), France (2.4 million) and the UK (2.2 million). Meanwhile, some countries such as Malta, Slovenia, Estonia and Bulgaria host fewer than 10,000 EU migrants. It is important to remember that these are absolute numbers of migrants that do not tell us about the shares of migrants in the population.

The largest groups of EU migrants in the UK in 2010 were those from Poland (521,446), Ireland (422,569), Germany (299,753) and France (128,010). In total there were about 2.2 million EU migrants living in the UK in 2010.

Figure 2

Note: The estimates for Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, Estonia and Bulgaria are all smaller than 35,000.

As shown in Figure 3, the EU countries with the largest number of people living in other EU countries in 2010 were Romania (2.3 million), Poland (1.9 million), Italy (1.7 million), Germany (1.5 million) and the UK (1.4 million). This means that, of all EU countries, the UK hosts the 4th largest number of EU migrants, and has sent the 5th largest number of people to other EU countries.

The largest populations of British people living in other EU countries in 2010 were in Spain (with 411,074 British migrants), Ireland (397,465), France (172,836) and Germany (154,826).

Figure 3

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Germany, Spain and France have the largest positive net migrant stocks with the rest of the EU. Romania, Poland and Portugal have the largest negative net migration stocks with the rest of the EU.

Figure 4 shows the net stock of EU migrants across the EU in 2010. The EU-country level net stock is defined as the difference between the number of EU migrants living in a country and the number of people from that country who are currently living in other EU countries (as a whole).

The value for Germany, the leading country is terms of positive net stock, is 2.2 million. This means that there are over 2 million more EU migrants in Germany, than there are Germans living in other EU countries.

Following Germany the countries with the largest positive net migrant stocks with the EU are Spain (1.8 million), France (1.4 million) and the UK (834,000). On the other side of the spectrum, Romania (-2.2 million), Poland (-1.6 million) and Portugal (-1 million) have the largest negative net migration stocks in the EU (i.e. many more people from these countries live in other EU countries, compared to the number of EU migrants that these countries host).

Figure 4

Note: The estimated net stock value is +2,688 migrants for Hungary and +670 migrants for Denmark.

It is also possible to estimate country-specific net migrant stocks (the net-migration stock between two countries). The UK has a small net migrant stock with most EU countries, with the notable exceptions of Poland and Spain (see Figure 5). The UK-Poland net migration stock is +518,497. This indicates that about half a million more Polish people live in the UK, compared to British people living in Poland. The UK-Spain net migration is -340,299. This suggests that many more British people live in Spain, compared with Spanish people living in the UK.

Figure 5

Note: The net stock estimates for countries such as Sweden, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Belgium are too small to be visible in Figure 5. These values range from Sweden = 2,193 migrants to Belgium = -2,651 migrants.

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Evidence gaps and limitations

Data from the bilateral migration matrix used in this briefing have several limitations and in some cases it was necessary to make strong assumptions. One of these assumptions entails combining information on foreign-nationals with that of foreign-born individuals in some countries to come up with a total estimate of the migrant stock. Moreover, the creators of the database had no bilateral migration data for several countries and had to use several estimation methodologies to “distribute” those migrants across countries. However, this problem relates mainly to developing countries and it is unlikely to affect most EU estimates. Finally, the meaning of migrant stocks for countries which were part of the same state (i.e. the Soviet Union) at some point but are now separate states is not clear as many of these “migrants” were technically born in the same state. This problem could be especially important for some of the countries which have joined the EU during the last decade. See Parsons et al. (2007), Ratha and Shaw (2007), Ozden et al. (2011) for further discussion of the limitations of these data. While recognizing these limitations, this dataset remains the most useful and most widely used in international comparisons of bilateral migrant stocks.

References

• Ozden, C., C.R. Parsons, M. Schiff, and T.L. Walmsley. “Where on Earth is Everybody? The Evolution of Global Bilateral Migration 1960–2000.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, World Bank, Washington DC, 2011.
• Parsons, C.R., R. Skeldon, T.L. Walmsley, and L.A. Winters. “Quantifying International Migration: a Database of Bilateral Migrant Stocks.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, World Bank, Washington DC, 2007.
• Ratha, D. and W. Shaw. “South-South Migration and Remittances.” World Bank Working Paper, World Bank, Washington DC, 2007

Related Material

• Migration Observatory briefing: Migration Flows of A8 and other EU Migrants to and from the UK
• Migration Observatory briefing: Global International Migrant Stock: The UK in International Comparison
• World Bank: Bilateral Migration and Remittances 2010 Excel datasets

Thanks to Bridget Anderson, Ron Skeldon, and Christopher Parsons for helpful comments and suggestions.