Hybrid Format

War and Migration: Quantifying the Russian Exodus with Digital Trace Data

Athina Anastasiadou
Laboratory of Digital and Computational Demography, October 26, 2022

Athina Anastasiadou from the Laboratory of Digital and Computational Demography aims at identifying potential Russian migrants by using online search results.

Abstract

As a reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a notable number of Russian citizens have left their home country due to increasing repressions by the government, the fear of mobilization, or to escape the economic downturn. Reliable statistical data of those who left are not available yet. This work aims at identifying potential migrants by using online search results. Moreover, the goal is to obtain a picture of the socio-demographic characteristics of the potential emigrants. Therefore, absolute search queries provided by Yandex Wordstat are used in combination with official data on socio-demographic characteristics. Additional data sources include survey data and border crossings. A multilevel GLM model is employed and yields significant results for selected socio-demographic characteristics at the regional level on migration-related online searches. These effects on migration-related searches differ in the short- and long-term. Therefore, she concludes that the demographic characteristics of emigrants vary across emigration waves out of Russia.

Co-author: Artem Volgin (University of Manchester)