Prioritizing global equity in migration research

Research shows that global knowledge production is unequal, leading to disparities in understanding across topics, geographies, and populations. This inequality is particularly concerning for critical social and political issues like immigration, one of the most divisive topics worldwide. Using Scopus bibliometric data from 1996 to 2022, we compile a comprehensive corpus of about 125,000 migration-related publications spanning all academic disciplines and interdisciplinary fields. By analyzing their content, we identify gaps, measure missed opportunities, and examine the demographic over- and under-representation of countries. Our findings reveal that some countries and subregions remain systematically underrepresented despite having significant migrant populations. Key factors influencing this underrepresentation include research investment and geographic location, with African countries, Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean being particularly affected. Moreover, emigration (i.e., accumulated outflow) is more strongly linked to a country’s research visibility than immigration (i.e., accumulated inflow). These findings have broad implications for resource allocation in migration research, its societal relevance, and the need for more evidence-based policy debates on migration.