Data around the global flow of refugees and displaced people, which currently amounts to around 120 million people, may be flawed, a new study suggests.

The research, led by social and political scientists at the University of California, suggests “empirical studies of refugee flows have been limited by a lack of reliable data”.

Researchers have found that much of the data used to analyse the mass displacement of individuals is often derived from “total end-of-year population counts of refugees within host countries, rather than actual flow estimates”.

With much of the data used dating 25 years back, the quality of older data is limited, with prior research not accounting for many values, the researchers say.

This is because asylum countries were not reporting arrivals to the UNHCR.

The study says that there are “large inconsistencies between the newly released flow numbers and the stock-based estimates upon which decades of research is based”.

The results suggest that hypotheses supporting findings were often discarded by original authors as “statistically unsupported”.

Also, the researchers’ findings confirm that political violence and state repression are factors in driving international displacement.

A concerning aspect of the research is the connection the data presents of refugees to terrorism.

Specifically, refugee influx is positively associated with terrorism” in the specific case of refugees from “communities with ties to transnational terrorist organizations.”

The study shows that “additional evidence” proves that the association for refugees originating from countries without ties is negative.

It says examining old data has not allowed researchers to make a definitive decision on the relationship between refugees, governments and human rights.

The findings provided by previously gathered data do not indicate that an “influx of refugees positively influences repression”, the report says.

The examination of these findings presents a different approach of what refugees are associated with, it says.

While the standard view of many, especially today, appears to be that refugees are security threats, the results of the study show that this should not be the case.

There seems to be no or a minimal connection to refugee inflows and violent instability, whereby it is only under “particular circumstances” that refugees might play a role in “facilitating political violence”, the research says.

The researchers say the study highlights the importance of letting go of the view that refugees are the reason of a host country’s political, social or economic problems, when refugees and migrants only wish to settle and start a new life, safe from danger.

Instead, more thorough research such as the one mentioned must be done to examine data and current events more closely to better inform public opinion, they say.

Katerina Hatzi