Explaining the travelling behaviour of migrants using Facebook audience estimates.

Abstract

The paper explores the travelling behaviour of migrant groups using Facebook audience estimates. Reduced geographical mobility is associated with increased risk of social exclusion and reduced socio-economic and psychological well-being. Facebook audience estimates are timely, openly available and cover most of the countries in the world. Facebook classifies its users based on multiple attributes such as the country of their previous residence, and whether they are frequent travellers. Using these data, we modelled the travelling behaviour of Facebook users grouped by countries of previous and current residence, gender and age. We found strong indications that the frequency of travelling is lower for Facebook users migrating from low-income countries and for women migrating from or living in countries with high gender inequality. Such mobility inequalities impede the smooth integration of migrants from low-income countries to new destinations and their well-being. Moreover, the reduced mobility of women who have lived or currently live in countries with conservative gender norms capture another aspect of the integration which is referring to socio-cultural norms and gender inequality. However, to provide more solid evidence on whether our findings are also valid for the general population, collaboration with Facebook is required to better understand how the data is being produced and pre-processed.