Journal Article
Mind the differences: an assessment of available data sources to study migration in Latin America and the Caribbean
Canadian Studies in Population, 52:1, 1–28 (2025), unpublished
Abstract
Although the scarcity of accurate and accessible data on international migration flows typically prevents a full understanding of migratory patterns, this might not be the case for Latin America and the Caribbean, where high-quality census data on five-year migrant stocks is publicly available through the project International Migration in Latin America (IMILA). However, such data have mostly been used for research at the regional level because of the fragmented nature of their availability and lack of English documentation. To tackle this issue, we consolidated data from the IMILA collection to provide a harmonized dataset with five-year migrant stocks by country of birth, country of residence at t-5, and sex for 12 Latin American and Caribbean destination countries and two periods (1995–2000 and 2005–2010). We then compare IMILA five-year stocks with five-year stocks with other publicly available figures from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series—International (IPUMS-I) and with pseudo-Bayesian five-year migration flow estimates (Abel, 2022), assessing differences in magnitude, directional patterns, and gender composition. Treating IMILA as a working bronze standard, we evaluate the difference and provide an overview of the Latin American and Caribbean migration system for 1995–2000 and 2005–2010. Our analysis demonstrates that differences across data sources are twofold: they not only affect the measured magnitude and relative weight of origins and destinations but also determine the extent to which it is possible to examine the sociodemographic stratification and inequalities embedded in migration processes—an analytical dimension that census-based data are uniquely equipped to capture.