Various definitions of international migration

In order to coordinate the statistical management of different countries and make the migration data of different countries more comparable, United Nations statisticians drafted the Recommendations on International Migration Statistics. The United Nations issued the first proposal on improving and coordinating international migration statistics in 1953, and then revised and updated it in 1976 and 1997. Among them, "1997 Recommendations on International Migration Statistics" was drafted by the United Nations Statistics Department at the request of the United Nations Statistical Commission. The United Nations Statistics Office cooperates closely with Eurostat and the United Nations Population Division, and some data come from the United Nations regional commissions and many specialized agencies related to international migration.

In the broadest sense, "1997 Statistical Recommendations on International Migration" defines an international immigrant as "anyone who changes his country of permanent residence". In this way, all tourists and daily transit commuters are included in the scope of immigration, and the time needs to be further specified. Therefore, the proposal further distinguishes between long-term immigrants and short-term immigrants: long-term immigrants refer to "people who have moved to non-resident countries for at least one year", so that the destination country actually becomes its new permanent residence country; Because there is a new type of short-term immigrants different from tourism in the international migration mode, the United Nations defines another type of immigrants as "people who have moved to a non-resident country for at least three months and less than 12 months, except those who go to the country for entertainment, vacation, visiting relatives and friends, business, medical care or religious worship.

In addition, in the tourism statistics proposal issued by the United Nations in 194, the "country of permanent residence" is defined as "the country where people have lived for most of the past 12 months, or the country where they have lived for a short time, but will return and continue to live in the future 12 months".

The World Tourism Organization defines international tourists as people who travel to non-resident countries and leave their permanent environment for no more than 12 months, and their main purpose of travel is not to work. The latter explanation emphasizes the differences between different migration purposes. Long-term travel is not considered immigration, while working in other countries and staying for 3- 12 months is short-term immigration.