Emigration from India rises but remains relatively low

India’s expatriation rate in 2013 was just 192, the second lowest among the top 50 countries of origin for immigrants into OECD countries.

One in ten new immigrants to developed countries in 2013 was from China, new data on international migration released on Tuesday afternoon showed. Immigration flows from India were comparatively low; despite being the next largest country, India made up only 4.4 per cent of new migrants and was in fourth position after Poland and Romania.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) International Migration Outlook 2015 was released on Tuesday afternoon. The report says that immigration flows are on the rise in most OECD countries, and preliminary data for 2014 suggest that permanent migration flows increased sharply for the first time since 2007 and are back to their pre-financial crisis level, with 4.3 million permanent entries to the OECD. Germany is now second only to the United States in the number of migrants it receives.

India’s expatriation rate — the number of outward-bound immigrants per million population — in 2013 was just 192, the second lowest among the top 50 countries of origin for immigrants into OECD countries. The difference between India’s share of the world’s population and its share of OECD immigrants is the lowest among these 50 countries. In 2013, there were 2.4 lakh new Indian immigrants to OECD countries.

Overall Indian immigration to OECD countries rose between 2012 and 2013 to 2.4 lakh new immigrants after having declined in the previous year. In several countries including the United States, Australia and Canada, Indian immigration in 2013 declined in comparison to the 2003-12 annual average.

Indian remains the world’s top supplier of emigrant doctors (87,000 as of 2010-11) and the second-largest origin country of nurses (70,000). The United States is the main home for both Indian-origin doctors and nurses, followed by the United Kingdom. Six per cent of international students in 2012 were also from India, a decline from the recent past.

In 2014, the number of new asylum seekers in OECD countries rose by 46 per cent, the second highest level in 35 years, save for 1992, when conflict in the former Yugoslavia drove asylum requests. Preliminary data suggest that 2015 will also reach a historical high, the report says. Syrian asylum-seekers accounted for one-third of the increase, and Germany saw the largest number of asylum applications. Indians were the second largest group of asylum-seekers to Australia, outnumbered only by the Chinese.