46 Chapter 3 The OECD has endeavoured to deliver statistics on migrant categories and provides some data on migrant workers, freedom of movement, accompanying family of workers, family migration, and humanitarian migration from 2003-2014. Lemaitre (2005) uses data on permanent migration inflows (identified through permanent or indefinitely renewable residence permits) in order to distinguish between different migration flows. However, as with all migration data there is a trade-off – while the method used5 provides a gain in cross-country compatibility and an improvement in the detail of information, the data is incomplete because the sources of the information deviate from the standard and issues arise from under-estimation (as it is only permanent-type migration). Furthermore, this source cannot be used for studying categories of migration within the EU because it all falls under ‘freedom of movement’. This category encompasses all individuals moving within the EU and Schengen zone, whether they moved for labour or family reasons, and regardless of nationality. For intra-EU mobility, there is no single perfect data source because of the administrative problems that arise from attempting to track individuals with no incentive to register their cross-border movements and the varying definitions of an immigrant across EU countries. Datasets such as the EU-LFS and EU-SILC have a strong advantage as both surveys are highly harmonised and optimised for comparability (Eurostat, 2019b). The disadvantage is that because migrants make up only a very small proportion of the entire population, household surveys can underrepresent specific migrant groups unless the sample size is very large6. On the other hand, census and survey data can capture a share of the irregular population who are inevitably excluded from population registers and permit systems. 3.5 The European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS): creating intra-EU labour migration indicators 3.5.1 The EU-LFS The EU-LFS is the largest, micro-level sample survey that provides information on the labour force participation of residents in private households aged 15 and over. In 2016, the sample size was approximately 4,500,000 individuals 5 See Lemaitre (2005) and Lemaitre et al. (2007). 6 This can be due to a number of reasons. Migrants tend to have a much higher nonresponse rate than the overall population due to language difficulties understanding the interviewer or survey or an unwillingness to provide information because of a desire to remain ‘under the radar’. Non-response rates are expected to be higher when the migrant is poorly integrated and has fewer socio-economic interactions with wider society. However, as intra-EU labour migrants or mobile citizens have the legal right to live and work in the other member states, the issue that may realistically cause a problem is language difficulties.
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