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Human geographic mobility is as much part of human life as of human history, for human beings are a migratory species and migration is a continuum in history. International migration is the crossing of international borders, the movement from one nation state to another that falls into the main categories of labor migration, forced migration, family migration, or migration for reasons of education and training. Dividing lines, however, blur, because political borders change and distinctions between voluntary (labor) migration and forced migration or between labor migration and family migration are problematic.

At the onset of the 21st century, nearly 200 million people, about 3 percent of the global population, were international migrants. Thirty years ago, the figure stood at 85 million (2.1 percent), and 230 million are projected for 2030. Today, around 100 million are labor migrants, 13 million are refugees registered with United Nations (UN) agencies, and the others are family members or students.

The United Nations and International Labor Organization (ILO) official figures of international (labor) migration require some reservations. First, migration is increasingly taking irregular (illegal) forms (a tenth to a fifth of all migration) that go unrecorded. Since no method can calculate levels of irregular migration, existing figures are only estimations. Second, international migration is increasingly temporary; indeed, it is the fastest growing type of migration, and often it is too short (less than 6 months) to count as migration. Third, migration is increasingly difficult to distinguish from other forms of mobility, namely business trips and tourism. For example, businesses might involve stays of more than 6 months, labor migrants often come on tourist visas because this is often the only available means of legal entry, and retirement migrants to southern countries might be counted as tourists. Fourth, the distinction between international migration across international borders and internal mobility within a country but across administrative boundaries often is implausible. For example, geographic mobility in China, India, Nigeria, or Russia is not understood as migration because no international borders are crossed, even though movements within these countries might involve long distances and the crossing of cultural, linguistic, or religious borders. Finally, the predominant form of migration has long been rural to urban. This primary cause of the growth of cities is mostly internal, so it is not recorded as (international) migration.

Consequently, recognizing other forms of geographic mobility would produce some very different figures, perhaps between 1 and 2 billion geographically mobile people. This would mean that at least one sixth to one third of the world's population are migrants. Putting international migration into the perspective of international travel and of internal mobility is essential, first, to produce a complete picture of human geographic mobility, and second, to judge the relevance of migration within the full range of human behavior in geographic space. In this sense, we can then examine whether migration is the behavior of only a minority (thus an exception from an otherwise sedentary norm) that requires explanation, or whether migration is normal and widespread behavior not requiring any extra justification and explanation.

Of the various major migration patterns, the first notable one is that contemporary migration is mostly from north to north (between developed countries); from south or east to north (from low- and medium-developed to developed countries), and from south to south (between developing countries). Just under half of all migration is toward and between developing countries, while the other half is toward and between developed countries, resulting in about 80 percent of all refugees found in developing countries. These directions, however, are increasingly diversifying, with recently observed large-scale movements from north to south or south to east. Second, most migration is regional, between neighboring countries. This is because distance is short and costs are low, but also because language, culture, or religion might be similar in sending and receiving countries and historical, cultural, political, and economic links possibly facilitate that migration. In contrast, forced migration is often internal, either because conflicts are of a local nature and people can escape to other parts of a country, or because people are prevented from entering other countries and becoming internationally recognized refugees.

Notably, migration is increasingly feminized, and today women account for about half of all migrants. However, in history women migrated too, a fact often unnoticed by then-contemporary sources. Perhaps it is research finally recognizing the role of women in global migration rather than some major shift in gender migratory activity occurring.

Furthermore, nearly all countries in varying degrees experience various stages of migration, changing from being mostly sending to mostly receiving countries (such as Germany and France), or vice versa (such as Spain, Italy, and Ireland). They can also be countries of transit migration for a limited period of time (such as Turkey and Mexico), and some may experience periods of zero migration (such as modern-day Portugal). Because migration seems to be hardly predictable, it is sometimes described as "turbulences."

Bibliography:

1) Castles, Stephen and Mark Miller. [1993] 2003. The Age of Migration: International Migration Movements in the Modern World. Houndmills, England: Palgrave.

2) Cole, Philip. 2000. Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.

3) Global Commission on International Migration. 2005. Migration in an Interconnected World. Report. Geneva, Switzerland: Global Commission on International Migration.

4) Hoerder, Dirk. 2003. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press.

5) Jordan, Bill and Franck Duvell. 2003. Migration: Boundaries of Equality and Justice. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

6) Massey, Douglas S., Joaquin Arango, Graeme Hugo, Ali Kouaouci, Adela Pellegrino, and Edward J. Taylor. 1998. Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.

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