World · 16 December 2025
Study Reveals Europeans Drastically Overestimate Number of Irregular Migrants
New research from the University of Birmingham shows most Britons vastly overestimate irregular migration numbers, while EU data reveals citizens think non-EU migrants represent 16.7% of the population when they actually comprise only 7.2%. The misconceptions are shaped more by political rhetoric and media coverage than facts, with older Conservative voters most likely to overestimate figures. Similar overestimation patterns appear across Europe, where asylum-seekers represent only a small fraction of total immigration despite dominating public discourse about migration.
Reported by University of Birmingham · How we write briefs