Regular migration pathways are essential for making migration promises a reality. These pathways are legal and policy frameworks that enable people to lawfully migrate to, enter, stay in, leave, or return to states. During migration journeys, the impacts of migration depend on where and how people migrate, which depends on the options available to them. Increasing opportunities for people to migrate through legal channels is key to making migration promises a reality.
This publication draws on data from the Migration Governance Indicators (MGI) from assessments conducted at 100 national levels and 69 local levels between 2016 and 2023, providing in-depth insights into legal migration pathways globally. It presents relevant policies at various stages of migration and in diverse contexts. The report also explores factors that can support effective and impactful migration pathways, and various mechanisms that can expand existing migration pathways, including assessing potential benefits from legal migration pathways for both migrants and countries of origin and destination.
Legal migration pathways are highly diverse and can be categorized in multiple ways. This publication focuses on the purposes of migration facilitated by designated pathways, analyzing four main reasons for migration, while acknowledging that these reasons cannot be comprehensive or mutually exclusive, as individual motivations for migration often overlap.
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