VID Colloquium
Using IP Address Geolocation to analyze International Migration and Mobility Patterns
Emilio Zagheni, Queens College of the City University of New York
Co-Authors: Bogdan State (Stanford University), Ingmar Weber (Qatar Computing Research Institute)
Date: Tue, 22 Jan. 2013, Time: 10:00-11:00 am
The increasing use of Internet worldwide has generated new opportunities for the study of migrations. Geolocation data resulting from repeated logins to the same website offer the possibility of tracking international movements of a large number of Web users. We use data on the geographic locations from where millions of anonymized users log into Yahoo! Web services, over a period of at least one year. The series of geographic locations allow us to infer, at the level of individuals and populations, changes of residence, short-term travels, and trends over time. We map global flows between countries and characterize the extent to which migrants travel back and forth between their country of origin and destination. Statistical analysis of the data set that we compiled documents the importance of geographic distance, visa regimes, colonial ties and economic development to explain global human mobility. The approach that we proposed attempts to address methodological challenges related to the analysis of digital records (e.g., selection bias), and has important implications for the future of collection and analysis of migration statistics.
About the presenter
Emilio Zagheni is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Before joining Queens College, he was a Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. He received his MA in Statistics (2008) and his PhD in Demography (2010) from the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked on a number of projects about the causes and consequences of demographic change, including applications to areas like population and environment, kinship structure and social support, Bayesian forecasting, the social determinants of the spread of infectious diseases, and the use of digital records for demographic analysis.