India has the largest diaspora population in the world, says UN report
16 million Indians live outside the country they were born in
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.India has the largest diaspora population in the world, with 16 million Indians living outside the country they were born in, according to United Nations report on migration trends.
The survey, conducted by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, found 224 million people lived as international migrants, or in a country other to the one they were born in, in 2015 - a 41 per cent increase from 2000.
Twenty million of these migrants are refugees, the survey found.
Jan Eliasson, the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations said refugees had been included for "statistical correctness” despite there being a “different legal regime” for them to migrants.
“Not included in this figure […] are around 40 million internally displaced people – refugees inside a country,” he added.
The richest Indian diaspora is in the US, where Indians counted for the third-largest ethnic group in 2015, making one per cent of the total US population.
Mexico had the second largest diaspora population at 12 million, followed by Russia and China.
Two-thirds of all international migrants lived in only 20 countries - predominantly the US, which hosted 47 million, or a fifth, of all migrants - followed by Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and the United Arab Emirates.
The UN data also revealed the number of international migrants has grown faster than the world's population, with the share of migrants in the global population reaching 3.3 per cent in 2015.
“What I found particularly interesting is how important migration has been for population growth, which is sorely needed in certain parts of the world,” said Mr Eliasson.
“In Europe, the size of the population would have fallen between 2000 to 2015, in the absence of positive net migration, so here is something related to what I would call the positive narrative about migration and refugees – the contribution to the demographics […] and of course what they do in terms of remittances.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments