Migration from Muslim-Majority Countries: A Tale of Two Patterns

This paper discusses the global Muslim migration patterns from Muslim-majority countries. The data for the analysis come from the United Nations international migrant stock estimates in 2010 and 2015 provided by Azose and Raftery (Proc Nat Acad Sci 116(1):116–22, 2019) merged with other major datasets. The findings reveal two patterns of migration from Muslim-majority countries. First, there may be two streams of Muslim migration. The flow of migration from Muslim-majority countries to Muslim-majority countries is different from the flow from Muslim-majority countries to non-Muslim-majority countries. Second, the characteristics of the receiving country are less likely related to the Muslim migration flow than the characteristics of the sending country.