Place of Birth and Past Place of Residence in South Korea: Methodological Considerations for Migration Research

This paper evaluates the possibility to estimate immigration and net migration from information about place of birth by applying the census-survival-ratio (CSR) method to life-time migration. The results show that this procedure substantially underestimates actual immigration, especially in the young-adult ages. The procedure yields slightly better results with net migration, especially concerning the age profile. But this procedure is not a large improvement over estimates that can be obtained from applying the CSR method to the general population.