Analysis of asylum and refugee statistics
ICAR produces occasional papers that provide commentary on and descriptive analysis of UK asylum statistics:
ICAR Key Statistics Paper 1:
Key Statistics about Asylum Seeker Applications in the UK
Updated December 2009
ICAR Key Statistics Paper 2:
Asylum Decision Making and Appeals Process
Updated March 2009
Statistical analysis from other sources
House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (2009): Management of asylum applications report. This committee examines the reports made by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) focusing only on value for money criteria, i.e. economy, efficiency and effectiveness. See also government response
Kathleen Newland [April 2005] ‘Drop in asylum numbers shows changes in demand and supply’. Washington: Migration Information Source. This article explores the reasons behind the recent drop in asylum applications, analysing the effects of both conflict resolution and stabilisation in countries of origin, and that of legislation in countries of asylum.
National Audit Office [May 2004] Asylum and migration: a review of Home Office statistics. London: NAO. Full report and executive summary . This provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality and reliability of Home Office asylum and migration statistics and a useful explanation of how asylum statistics are generated from administrative data.
Emma Stewart [March 2004] ‘Deficiencies in UK Asylum Data: Practical and Theoretical Challenges’, Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 17, no. 1. This paper audits the available asylum data in the UK, evaluates the main data sources used by researchers and compares UK asylum data with Australian and Swedish data collection.
Bela Hovy [2002] ‘Statistics on forced migration’. Washington: Migration Information Source. This article explores issues relating to the availability of data on forced migration, and the challenges of data collection and analysis in this field.
UNHCR's New Issues in Refugee Research working paper series includes two working papers on asylum and refugee statistics:
- Bela Hovy [April 2001] Statistically correct asylum data: prospects and limitations , Working Paper No. 37. Geneva: UNHCR. This paper provides a comparison of period and cohort based asylum data analysis, using the UK as a case study.
- Jeff Crisp [June 1999] 'Who has counted the refugees?' UNHCR and the politics of numbers , Working Paper No. 12. Geneva: UNHCR. This highlights the politics of generating statistical data about refugees, in particular definitional and operational. The cases of Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, Zaire and Uganda are looked at in detail.
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Last Updated: 25/01/10
