Abstract
This paper outlines the methodology of DEMIG POLICY, a new database tracking
around 6,000 migration policy changes in 45 countries between 1945 and 2014. The
article conceptualizes the notion of migration policy change and presents the coding
system used to operationalize policy content, changes in policy restrictiveness, as well
as the magnitude of policy changes. The paper also discusses the potential of
DEMIG POLICY to improve our understanding of the nature, evolution, and
effectiveness of migration policies. Besides significantly extending the geographical
and historical coverage of existing migration policy databases, DEMIG POLICY also
tracks emigration policies in order to overcome the common ‘receiving country bias’ in
migration research. By offering key insights into the main features of the largest
migration policy database completed to date, this paper hopes to provide useful
guidelines to improve future efforts to measure migration policies. Such improvement
is crucial given the heated debates on migration policy effectiveness on one hand and
the still limited empirical evidence on this issue on the other.
around 6,000 migration policy changes in 45 countries between 1945 and 2014. The
article conceptualizes the notion of migration policy change and presents the coding
system used to operationalize policy content, changes in policy restrictiveness, as well
as the magnitude of policy changes. The paper also discusses the potential of
DEMIG POLICY to improve our understanding of the nature, evolution, and
effectiveness of migration policies. Besides significantly extending the geographical
and historical coverage of existing migration policy databases, DEMIG POLICY also
tracks emigration policies in order to overcome the common ‘receiving country bias’ in
migration research. By offering key insights into the main features of the largest
migration policy database completed to date, this paper hopes to provide useful
guidelines to improve future efforts to measure migration policies. Such improvement
is crucial given the heated debates on migration policy effectiveness on one hand and
the still limited empirical evidence on this issue on the other.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Comparative Migration Studies |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 15 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding:This work was supported by the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework
Programme (FP7/2007-2013) [ERC Grant Agreement 240940].
