Let’s look at Asia, the most populous continent. When an Asian emigrant leaves their home country, they can move to either another Asian country or one of the other five continents. Six out of ten Asian emigrants stay within Asia.
European and North American emigrants show an even stronger tendency to stay in their continent, at 70% and 87%, respectively. In Africa and South America, this share is smaller, at about half.
It makes sense that most migrants stay on the same continent. For instance, people might prefer places where they share a language or culture, have family nearby, or can return home cheaply and more quickly.
This is good work -- but the really interesting question is what will the rise of large-scale climate migration do to these numbers. Moving to a neighboring country (much less in-country) will not help most of those pushed out by climate extremes.
Comments