Migration and Remittances: Recent Developments and Outlook

According to the World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016, more than 250 million people, or 3.4 percent of the world population, live outside their countries of birth (Figure 1). The volume of South–South migration stands at 38 percent of the total migrant stock, larger than South–North migration. Mexico–United States is the largest migration corridor in the world, followed by Russia– Ukraine, and Bangladesh–India. The top migrant-destination country is the United States, followed by Saudi Arabia, Germany, and the Russian Federation. The number of migrant workers as a share of population is the highest in the smaller nations of Qatar (91 percent), the United Arab Emirates (88 percent) and Kuwait (72 percent).