A rebound in movements

A rebound in movements

The restrictions discussed above caused major disruptions to all forms of human mobility, from air travel within and between countries, to local community visits to workplaces and stores. All these forms of mobility have rebounded considerably, but at very different rates for different countries and for different forms of mobility. By December 2022, all forms of air travel had recovered significantly but remained well below 2019 levels.¹⁶ International passenger numbers were still between 1 and 49 per cent lower than before the pandemic, while domestic passenger numbers sat 9 to 42 per cent lower in all world regions except North America, where they were 6 per cent higher than in 2019. Local community mobility – consisting of visits to transit stations, workplaces, pharmacies, grocery stores, and places of retail and recreation – has rebounded more vigorously than air travel, but there are striking differences among countries. In general, less developed countries have experienced a much more rapid resurgence of community mobility, while the recovery of community mobility in more developed countries has been more muted.

Air travel

Air passenger numbers have risen rapidly since early 2020 when lockdowns brought the world to a halt, but many airlines remained decimated even in late 2022. International air-travel passenger numbers were still below 2019 levels in all world regions. In Africa, they were still down by 10 per cent and in Europe by 25 per cent. One reason is that would-be travellers and migrants still face more complex and riskier regulatory environments than they did in 2019, involving long visa backlogs, the possibility of sudden border closures, reduced airline capacity, and sky-high prices. It often makes the most sense to delay travel plans. In Asia and the Pacific, these factors are compounded by the large distance between international borders in a region characterized by large national territories and widely dispersed archipelagos. In this world region, the number of international air passengers is still 49 per cent lower than in 2019, far lower than in any other world region.

Source: ICAO, 2022.¹⁷

Note: The figure reflects ICAO geographic regions and does not imply official endorsement or acceptance by IOM. Please refer to ICAO (2022) for more information.

The recovery of domestic air travel passenger numbers is more geographically uneven. In some cases, international movement has been replaced by internal mobility. Domestic passenger numbers have rebounded to 6 per cent above 2019 levels in North America, but they remain well below pre-pandemic levels in Latin America and the Caribbean (down 9%), Africa (down 15%), and Europe (down 23%). They are a full quarter below 2019 levels in the Middle East, where complex political and security challenges deter people from moving between cities and regions within several major countries. Domestic passenger numbers are still 42 per cent below 2019 levels in Asia and the Pacific, where domestic travel often involves moving between distant, isolated islands or cities.

Source: ICAO, 2022.

Note: The figure reflects ICAO geographic regions and does not imply official endorsement or acceptance by IOM. Please refer to ICAO (2022) for more information.

It is important to note that in some parts of the world, land and sea travel for domestic and international mobility can be more significant than air travel. While, unlike air travel, there are no global data available on this transportation sector for comparative purposes, studies show that livelihood strategies were deeply affected by COVID-19 immobility. The text box below, for example, highlights key findings and responses to the impact of COVID-19 on cross-border traders in East Africa.

Community mobility

In early 2020, most human beings were forced to stop all forms of mobility, including “community mobility” consisting of visits to transit stations, workplaces, grocery and pharmacy stores, and places of retail and recreation.¹⁸ Community mobility has since rebounded at different rates in different places. In general, by December 2022, it was clear that less developed countries were rebounding faster than more developed ones, which is the opposite of what intuition might suggest.

Community mobility rebounded with striking vigour in much of the developing world. In Nigeria, all types of visits plummeted by an average of 48 per cent in April 2020, but rebounded to an average of 59 per cent above pre‑pandemic levels in the first half of October 2022. Despite its different geography, Papua New Guinea showed similar trends: all kinds of visits initially dropped by a monthly average of 19 per cent in April 2020, but subsequently shot up to around double their pre-pandemic levels in the first half of October 2022. In India, visits dropped by an average of two thirds during April 2020, but climbed back to a third above pre-pandemic levels in the first half of October 2022. This may be because many developing countries depend heavily on primary industries, which require moving physical objects, so that clearing pandemic backlogs may involve temporary mobility spikes. A more tentative and intriguing hypothesis is that some structural transformation may explain this vigorous resurgence of community mobility, perhaps related to large-scale outflows from urban to rural areas, which may drive longer-term changes in the relationship between cities and their regional hinterlands.

Source: Google, 2022.

Note: This chart shows the average percentage difference (relative to the period before the pandemic) in visits to pharmacy and grocery stores, retail and recreation places, workplaces and transit stations. All trendlines are 28-day moving averages. Further information on Google mobility data is available at Google, 2022.

The rebound of community mobility has been much more subdued in more developed countries. In Italy, most forms of community mobility remained 1 to 8 per cent below pre-pandemic benchmarks on average in early October 2022, with the exception of visits to grocery and pharmacy stores, which rose to a fortnightly average of 19 per cent above pre-pandemic levels. In Canada, visits to retail and recreation areas, grocery stores, and pharmacies had only rebounded to slightly above pre-pandemic levels. Remarkably, in the first half of October 2022, visits to transit stations remained 21 per cent lower than before the pandemic. Visits to workplaces remained 17 per cent lower on average than pre-pandemic levels during the first half of October. These last two figures in particular probably reflect a structural shift towards remote working in developed countries (see discussion on counter-urbanization in the next section).

An interesting case is Brazil, which combines the characteristics of both developing and developed countries. Here, “essential” mobility bounced back robustly: compared to pre-pandemic baselines, visits to workplaces were 58 per cent higher on average during the first half of October 2022. Visits to pharmacies and grocery stores were 26 per cent higher on average for the same period, mirroring the trends of less developed countries. However, “non-essential” mobility had only just recovered to 2019 levels, similar to trends in more developed countries. Visits to transit stations averaged 4 per cent above pre-pandemic baselines in early October 2022, while visits to places of retail and recreation were up just 7 per cent.

As well as temporary disruptions, the pandemic has caused structural shifts in how people move around their communities. In all six countries, “essential” visits to grocery stores and pharmacies have rebounded most vigorously. But for other forms of community mobility, there are sharp differences between the developed and developing worlds. In less developed countries, pandemic recovery is more likely to require mobility, whereas in more developed countries community mobility has declined, partly because such countries have both the occupations and the information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure to enable remote work.