Conceptualizing, planning, and administering migration surveys

This chapter provides guidance on how to conduct quantitative data collection exercises among migrants as well as communities impacted by migration and displacement both in origin and destination societies. It builds off of the original chapter “Measuring migration in multi-topic household surveys” by Carletto, de Brauw and Banerjee (2012) within the first edition of the Handbook of Research Methods in Migration, and offers an update to the topic incorporating some of the more recent developments in the field. We lay out some of the main challenges and considerations when planning a migration survey, and address new and innovative methods around sampling hard-to-reach populations and the use of remote surveys which has increased in prominence since the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion hopefully proves useful for early-stage researchers beginning their own projects, helping them to manage the myriad conceptual, methodological and practical challenges likely faced when conducting quantitative data collection on migration.