Replication Data for: Measuring Racial Bias in International Migration Flows

Are international migration flows racially biased? Despite widespread consensus that racism and xenophobia affect migration processes, no measure exists to provide systematic evidence on this score. In this research note, I construct such a measure—the migration deviation. Migration deviations are the difference between the observed migration between states, and the flow that we would predict based on a racially blind model that includes a wide variety of political and economic factors. Using this measure, I conduct a descriptive analysis and provide evidence that migrants from majority black states migrate far less than we would expect under a racially blind model. These results pave a new way for scholars to study international racial inequality.

国际移民流动是否存在种族偏向？尽管学界已普遍认可种族主义与仇外心理会对移民进程产生影响，但目前尚无相关量化指标可就此提供系统性实证依据。本研究短评就此构建了一项专属量化指标——移民偏差值（migration deviation）。所谓移民偏差值，指的是各国间实际观测到的移民流量，与基于种族中立模型所预测的移民流量之间的差值；该种族中立模型纳入了涵盖政治、经济在内的多类影响因素。依托该指标，本文开展了描述性分析，结果显示：来自黑人占人口多数国家的移民，其移民规模远低于种族中立模型的预测值。本研究结果为学界研究国际种族不平等问题开辟了全新路径。