The migration figures I was seeking are not available from the sources John
Barker mentions. I have however obtained useful information from a paper
published in Australia:
T Hatton, Why has UK net immigration increased?, available at
http://cepr.anu.edu.au/pdf/DP457.pdf .
Table 2 of Hatton's paper lists gross and net migration flows for UK and
foreign citizens. Net migration of foreign citizens was 406,000 from
1969-178, 399,600 from 1979-98, and 683,300 from 1989-98. Net migration for
the same time periods was -480,800, -55,300 and 460,400. Hatton suggests
that both the previous deficit in net migration, and the recent move into
surplus, are primarily a product of economic conditions.
There are differences both in time period and definitions from those used by
Rendall and Ball (Hatton uses the unadjusted IPS data), but Hatton's figure
for the total net migration of foreign citizens (1.49 million for 1969-1998)
does not seem difficult to reconcile with the patterns described in that
paper. The effect of substantial re-emigration of immigrants is greatly to
reduce the effective net levels of immigration. There were 2,983,000 people
born overseas in the 1971 census, and 4,866,000 in the 2001 census, a net
increase of 1,883,000. This averages at a net foreign immigration of about
63,000 a year, which is about fifth of some of the wilder estimates we have
seen. Over time, the main effect has been to balance the effect of
out-migration.
Paul Spicker
Professor of Public Policy
Centre for Public Policy and Management
The Robert Gordon University
Garthdee Road
Aberdeen AB10 7QE
Scotland
Tel: +44 12243120
Fax: + 44 12243434
Website: http://www.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy/
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