New Report Sketches Changing Face of Global Human Mobility Amid Rebound from Pandemic, Climate and Displacement Shocks & More

GENEVA and WASHINGTON, DC — Human mobility has fully rebounded from the sharp downturns seen during the COVID-19 pandemic — demonstrating its resilience and inevitability — and is undergoing significant shifts across world regions, according to a report released today by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).  

The study marks the first attempt to bring together regional flow monitoring data from IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix to illuminate the scale and characteristics of global movement, both regular and irregular.  

In the report, The State of Global Mobility in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic, MPI analysts sketch how movements have fully recovered from pandemic-era restrictions, as well as how they are being shaped by climate and displacement shocks.

The research shows COVID-19 led to more limited options for regular movement, diverting migrants to more dangerous, irregular routes. Irregular migration also began to stretch over longer distances, exemplified by migrants from origins as far as China transiting the dangerous Darién jungle that spans the Colombia–Panama border. 

The report also notes that climate and environmental events have begun to trigger larger, longer-distance movements. Cataclysmic floods in Pakistan, which displaced 8 million people internally and catalyzed an economic crisis, led to rising numbers leaving their country to find better opportunities elsewhere.  

Among the region-specific findings in the report:  

• The resurgence of migration to the Gulf Cooperation Countries has established the region’s pre-eminence as the new migration destination. While the pandemic triggered a mass exodus of migrant workers from the Gulf, these countries have seen a rapid recovery of labor migration from South and Southeast Asia, as well as increasing immigration from East Africa. 
• Southern Africa is fast becoming a microcosm for a fast-evolving, mobile world. Labor demand in many Southern African countries is being met with an increase in intra-regional, short-term and circular movement. This emulates global trends seeing less reliance on intra-regional permanent labor migration. 
• The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan resulted in surprising, not always linear, mobility patterns. Even amid an exodus of refugees fleeing violence and the new regime, the Taliban victory ended decades of conflict, leading to a drop in movements both into and out of the country, as well as a decline in internal displacement. 
• Irregular migration to Europe reached the highest levels seen since 2015-16, shifting to dangerous and previously less-used corridors. Even as Europe has tightened enforcement of its borders, migrants have moved to more dangerous routes across the Central Mediterranean and Western Balkans or to less common routes such as the West African/Atlantic route.
• Migration in the Americas has become truly hemispheric. After years of increasing displacement and migration, Latin America is now a region of immigration as well as emigration. People leaving Venezuela — and to some extent, Haiti — have been met with a pragmatic, albeit uneven, welcome in neighboring countries. But as their displacement becomes protracted, more and more migrants are crossing longer distances that stretch across the hemisphere, with many travelling northward to reach the United States. 

“Mobility has reached a new scale and complexity amid rapid transformations, ranging from the climate crisis to urbanization and digitalization to demographic change,” MPI researchers Meghan Benton, Lawrence Huang, Jeanne Batalova and Tino Tirado write. “Conflicts and crises in countries from Afghanistan and Ukraine to the Syrian Arab Republic and Sudan have forced millions to move, just as a warming world has turned climate displacement from a future warning into a current reality. Meanwhile, growing demographic asymmetries (as some countries age rapidly while others see their youth population balloon) will continue to deepen the drivers of migration in the decades to come.” 

They conclude: “This uneven landscape indicates that the world is entering an age of disruption for human mobility, the impacts of which are hard to predict.” 

The report is available at www.migrationpolicy.org/research/state-global-mobility-aftermath-covid-19.

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About the International Organization for Migration 

Established in 1951, IOM is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental partners. With 173 member states, a further nine states holding observer status and offices in over 100 countries, IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants. Learn more about IOM: www.iom.int. 

About the Migration Policy Institute 

A non-partisan think tank, MPI seeks to improve immigration and integration policies through authoritative research and analysis, opportunities for learning and dialogue, and the development of new ideas to address complex policy questions. Established in 2001, MPI aims to meet the rising demand for pragmatic and thoughtful responses to the challenges and opportunities that large-scale migration, whether voluntary or forced, presents to communities and institutions in an increasingly integrated world. For more on MPI, visit www.migrationpolicy.org.