Long-term International Migration Estimates for Northern Ireland (2004-5), Sources and Methodology : NISRA Occasional Paper. 22

Interest in the levels of international migration in the United Kingdom (UK) and in Northern Ireland (NI) has increased following the accession of eight Central and Eastern European countries (referred to as the "A8" countries) to the European Union in May 2004.

This paper describes research undertaken by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) to assist measurement of the levels of international migration in Northern Ireland in the period 2004-5.

Migration is the most difficult component of population change to measure, due to the absence of a direct measure, the impact of illegal migration, the presence of visitors/short-term migrant workers which can create differences between the official migration estimates and the perceived level of migration in an area.

Whilst migration can be estimated using administrative and statistical systems, significant effort is required in understanding the nature and coverage of these systems.

Moreover no estimate of migration within the current administrative and statistical infrastructure can be definitive. The remainder of this paper describes the sources available to measure international migration with summary statistics for Northern Ireland.

Finally, information is presented on the levels of migration included in the 2005 population estimate series and possible further research is discussed.