Stop, in the name of COVID!

Jordan Klein , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Ingmar Weber, Qatar Computing Research Institute
Emilio Zagheni , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Organization for Migration has postulated that international migrant stocks have fallen short of their pre-pandemic projections by nearly 2 million due to travel restrictions. However, this is not testable with migration data from traditional sources due to the negative impacts the pandemic has had on census data collection operations, and key migration stakeholders, including the IOM, have called for the use of data from alternative sources, including social media, to fill in these gaps. Building on previous work using social media data to estimate trends in migrant stock following external shocks, we test the hypothesis that migrant stock was reduced by COVID-related travel restrictions using Facebook data, adjusting them for bias using an established set of methods. Our preliminary results support this hypothesis, suggesting social media data may help fill critical gaps in traditional migration data sources during the COVID-19 pandemic.

See paper

 Presented in Session 35. Modelling Migration, Mobility and Positioning