Migration in National Surveys

Survey Data Catalogue

Information on Fields

General vs. Child tabs
The MiNS catalogue derives its uniqueness from its dual focus on general and child migration. The novel structure of the catalogue reflects this distinction; details of each survey are accessible through two different tabs, “general” and “child”. The general tab highlights data and information that is relevant for the topic of migration in general, while the child tab highlights data that is specifically relevant for child migration. In the section of the catalogue under the child tab all modules of the questionnaires that contain questions on the migration of children, or are relevant in identifying patterns of child migrants in a certain country, are listed in detail, and the child migration related content of key reports is summarised for that country's survey.

Region
Each country is allocated to a region of the world according to the World Bank country classification. Thus, countries are grouped into six regions, East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia , Sub-Saharan Africa.

Survey Type
We currently have five types of surveys in the MiNS catalogue, Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Integrated Surveys (IS), Population and Housing Censuses (PHC) and Child Labour Surveys (CLS). One key common feature is that they are all large-scale household surveys with typically a national coverage. Another important feature of all the chosen surveys is that although each type of survey may have its own focus, they all cover a similar range of issues, which are key to the understanding and the monitoring of the overall progress of a country in the development of human, social and financial capital.

Summary
The content of this field of the catalogue varies depending on whether the user accesses the survey details via the general or the child tab. If the survey details are accessed via the general tab, the summary provides an account of the questions of the survey questionnaire that are key for the construction of migration variables, without distinguishing between migration of adult household members or youth and children. Under the general tab, this field also describes how the survey data were subsequently used by the relevant statistical agencies to address migration questions, such as how many migrants there are in the selected country, what are the characteristics of the migrants, what are the links between that country's migration and poverty.

On the other hand, if the survey details are accessed through the child tab, the summary describes the migration indicators (or variables) that can be constructed specifically for children and youth, the age groups that are covered and the types of children's movements that can be captured through these variables.

Relevant Modules
This field lists the modules or sections of the survey questionnaire where questions about migration can be found. The content of this field may slightly vary depending on whether the survey details are accessed through the general or the child tab, since in some cases a migration question, and the relative module, may be applicable only to children or only to adults.

Questionnaires
In this section of the catalogue we provide direct links to the household, individual and community level questionnaires from the surveys. All questionnaires are listed both under general and under child, since we believe that it is important that users can access all questionnaires that are available for each survey from wherever they are viewing the survey details. A similar argument applies to the links that are provided in the section “Data” of the catalogue (see description below).

Data
This field generally provides links to the surveys' data sets – when these are made freely accessible on the web by the relevant agencies – or to the agency's web page that provides information on how to access or to download the data sets. Here we also provide links to any supporting documents that are published on the web by the agencies. However, the content of this section of the catalogue varies by type of survey, due to the different nature of the surveys and the different access policies of the agencies that are responsible for the management of the surveys.

Key Outputs
For each survey, this field of the catalogue provides links to publications that use the data sets of that survey. The main type of publications that appear here are the final or preliminary reports that are produced by the agencies that were responsible for the collection and analysis of the data. Final reports are standard outputs that should be produced and made accessible to the public by the relevant agencies after the data collection period. As such, they are normally accessible through the relevant agencies, either on their website or upon request.

Under the child part of the database, in some cases, a different type of key outputs appears. These are other electronic publications (papers or reports) that use the data concerned to specifically analyse issues pertaining to child migration. They may have one or more authors and may not be sponsored (or published) by the agencies that are responsible for the implementation of the survey. However, they may be useful for researchers who wish to gain an insight into how these types of survey data sets could be used to analyse issues on child migration, or to other users of the catalogue who are simply seeking empirical evidence on the phenomenon of child migrants in one or more countries.

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