International migration flows in South Asia: A cross-sectional analysis

Abstract

Introduction

As of 2017, the Asian continent consists of 60% of the world’s population (World Population Review, 2017) where the stock of migrants in Asia had increased drastically from 40 million to a nearly 60 million since 2005 (IOM, 2018). Interestingly, out of the top 20 migrant countries in 2015 in Asia, India is ranked as the top contributor followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh in fourth and fifth places along with Afghanistan in the tenth place (IOM, 2018) signalling that South Asia contributes to the world migration flows significantly in an era where the development in the South Asian region is acknowledged by the world bank (The World Bank, 2018). The purpose of this paper is to understand which factors contribute to bilateral migration in South Asia and to explore if there exist salient patterns for migration flows for developed and developing regions. Furthermore, this paper seeks to understand why people migrate from South Asia and what aspects of policies would help sustain this wealth of human resources within the region.