Key facts about recent trends in global migration
The number of international migrants grew to 281 million in 2020; 3.6% of the world’s people lived outside their country of birth that year.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The number of international migrants grew to 281 million in 2020; 3.6% of the world’s people lived outside their country of birth that year.
The number of unauthorized immigrants living in Europe increased between 2014 and 2016, then leveled off to an estimated 3.9 million to 4.8 million in 2017, according to new estimates from Pew Research Center.
In this Q&A and video, learn about the methods and data sources the Center used to estimate the number of unauthorized immigrants in Europe.
The size of Europe’s unauthorized immigrant population in 2017 was less than half the number in the United States.
As the number of international migrants reaches new highs, people around the world show little appetite for more migration – both into and out of their countries.
A median of 23% in eight key countries in Western Europe name immigration as one of the top two problems facing their country.
People with populist views in Western Europe are more likely than those with mainstream views to distrust traditional institutions. While populist attitudes span the ideological spectrum in Western Europe, populist political parties are relatively unpopular in the region.
Americans and Western Europeans have broadly similar views on certain social and political issues. For example, majorities of Americans and Western Europeans see immigrants as beneficial to their economies and support certain rights for gays and lesbians.
Roughly 20 million people who were born in a country now a part of the European Union have moved from their birth country and now live in another EU nation.
In a number of countries, younger people are more likely than their elders to take an inclusive view of what it takes for people to be truly “one of us.”
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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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