What the Age Composition of Migrants can Tell Us

This report seeks to identify some of the factors that are responsible for the widespread regularities in age profiles exhibited by empirical schedules of migration. It shows how family relationships among migrants are reflected into their aggregate age profiles. By disaggregating migrants into dependent and independent categories, the paper illuminates the ways in which the age profile of migrating populations is sensitive to relative changes in dependency levels and in rates of natural increase and mobility. Just as population age compositions reflect particular characteristics of fertility and mortality regimes, so do observed migration age compositions reflect key aspects of family structure and migration patterns. A framework for assessing the impacts of natural increase, family dependencies, and different migration propensities is proposed