Overseas students and
returning British citizens impact on UK migration
Len Arthur 14 June 2016
You may be surprised, as I was, when I first discovered that
overseas students coming to the UK were considered as part of the migrant inflow
figures. When I looked a bit deeper I also discovered that returning British
citizens were also included in these figures.
Now this is not to argue that this shouldn’t happen. When
counting something lines of definition have to be drawn somewhere and infinite
graduations of meaning don’t help the maths. So this is not to suggest that the
definition of who is a migrant is wrong or needs updating - though I think there
may be a good case for this - it is just that raw data can look very different
when seen from a qualitative view that social meanings do have graduations.
My surprise about both categories being included in the
migrant definition was that I started out with a common assumption that
migration meant someone from another country moving to another for a longish
period of time for family or work reasons. Overseas students are in the UK to
study for a defined period of time and make a major contribution to our education
system, particularly universities, both in terms of income and intellectual
input. If they go on to work here the UK reaps the benefit of this education.
Again returning British citizens do not fall into the common assumption of a
migrant being a person with citizenship of another country.
So, without making any changes in definition, it is possible
to use current data to assess what impact it would have on the net migration
figure to the UK, if we put to one side overseas students and British citizens
as part of the migrant inflow to the UK.
First some basics. Migration to and from a country is
assessed by taking account of total inflows and outflows over a period of time.
The difference in the two figures is defined as net migration and tends to be
the figure the debate homes in on ‘millions coming to the country’ etc.
Taking the 10 year period from 2006 to 2015, the latest
information available, we have a total inflow figure of 5.770m coming to the
UK. The total outflow figure is 3.478m making a total of net migration of
2.489m. This net figure is larger than if you do the calculation as adjustments
were made following the 2011 census.
Now, of the total inflow figure of 5.770m 1.875m are
overseas students, and 0.829m are returning British citizens. Adding the
figures for overseas students and British citizens together we arrive at 2.704m
for the 10 year period.
You can see where this is now going. If you follow the
argument about putting to one side the categories of British citizens and
overseas students we can set deduct the total of these two figures from the
starting inflow figure of 5.770m. This results in a different inflow figure of
3.066m.
Using this adjusted inflow figure of 3,066m a different net
migration figure can be arrived at. Total outflow of migrants from the UK over
the same period is as quoted above 3.478m. Now the surprise, take this from the
adjusted flow figure of 3,066m and the result is minus yes minus 0.412m.
Numbers are important in the arguments about migration but
so is getting a human and qualitative understanding of what the figures mean.
What these calculations indicate is that net migration to the UK is not what is
commonly assumed either in numbers or in terms of people and we should be more
critical of the case made by the right.
Hopefully, using existing data and not wild projections
these calculations can help make the point.
Period covered is the ten years 2006 – 2015
Total net inflow of migrants 5.770m
Inflow adjusted for BS+OS
- 2.704m
=3.066m
Minus total outflow -3.478m
Net flow of migrants to UK as result - 0.412m
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