Large Gaps in Migration Research

Study reveals imbalanced coverage of global areas in migration research

• Research Focus: Scientists from several institutions examined the representation of countries in migration studies, revealing that lower-income countries are often underrepresented.
• Publication Analysis: The research team created a comprehensive glossary and analyzed 123,271 publications, identifying significant gaps in research from regions like Africa and parts of Asia.
• Geographic Disparities: The research shows a concentration on Europe, America, and parts of Asia, with many countries in Africa, Asia, and America overlooked.

The world's population is on the move. Several hundred million people live outside their country of birth because they have found work, are studying, or have fled there. But how balanced is the coverage of countries in research dealing with global migration? To answer this question, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), the University of Rostock, the University of Oxford, the University of Leicester, and the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) conducted a study. "We wanted to find out if global migration research disproportionately focuses on certain countries and regions while neglecting others," explains Aliakbar Akbaritabar (MPIDR / University of Rostock), co-author of the study. The researchers assessed the representation of different countries in migration research by comparing a country's significance with its actual emigrant and immigrant populations.

The research team compiled a comprehensive glossary of migration-related terms from different sources in migration literature and expanded them. They searched this glossary of terms in the Scopus database, which contains metadata on 36 million English-language publications from 1996 to 2022. They identified over 6.6 million potentially relevant articles. After refining and filtering out irrelevant uses of migration-related terms, the researchers used a combination of expert knowledge and computer-assisted text analysis methods to create a final corpus of 123,271 publications on migration.

“Our approach combines demographic analysis, text mining, and a new metric for the representation of countries in migration research relative to the size of migrant population. Using text analysis, we created a broad corpus of migration research that transcends disciplinary boundaries and includes work published outside traditional migration journals," said Ignacio Carrasco (University of Oxford), the study's lead author.

Carrasco et al. found persistent inequalities in the representation of countries in migration research:

• Countries with lower income and low research investment are most likely to be underrepresented, even when immigration and emigration figures are taken into account.
• Higher-income countries are consistently overrepresented because they benefit from stronger research infrastructures and larger pools of affiliated authors.
• Research is geographically concentrated in Europe, America, and parts of Asia. But many countries in Africa, Asia, and America are overlooked.

Almost half of African countries and around 40 percent of Asian countries are underrepresented. The affiliation of authors is also highly concentrated.

• Over three-quarters of migration research is conducted exclusively by authors from high-income countries.
• Only 0.5 percent is accounted for by authors from low-income countries.

"This concentration raises the question of whose perspectives shape knowledge about migration. Some research on low-income countries runs the risk of reinforcing a pattern similar to what has been called helicopter research, where data is collected in these countries, but most of the academic credit remains with richer institutions, which requires further research," said Akbaritabar. Subregional inequalities continue to exist. "While Europe and Asia show balanced attention to all subregions, research in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania focuses heavily on one subregion.

Global migration research thus tends to reproduce infrastructural inequalities. Relevant countries are left behind, and many countries where migration plays a significant role are not adequately studied. "These gaps reflect larger inequalities in global scientific production. This is concerning and needs to be addressed. Our knowledge of migration must not be dominated by knowledge of certain contexts while other contexts are overlooked," Carrasco explains.