Laboratory

Migration and Mobility

At a Glance Projects Publications Team

Detailed Description

© iStockphoto.com / AndreyPopov

Societies increasingly face the challenges of managing vital migration flows and integrating migrants in the context of below-replacement fertility, slow population aging, and sudden crises or shocks.

Demographers have played a key role in developing theories and methods to explain fertility and mortality. The role of demographic science in the study of migration, by contrast, has received relatively limited attention. This is not because of a lack of ideas or conceptual frameworks. It is mainly because of a lack of adequate data that are necessary to test migration theories and to develop new ones.The rapid spread of information and communication technologies and the increase in computing power have opened up new opportunities for breakthroughs to be made in the study of migration and mobility. The use of the Internet, social media, and various forms of electronic communication are affecting migration choices and constraints. And the same technological changes that are transforming migration experiences are also generating digital trace data that researchers can leverage, with appropriate statistical tools, to address classic questions in migration studies.

Our main ambition is to combine traditional and novel data sources within a solid statistical framework, to measure and predict migration outcomes and the integration of migrants, and to evaluate the impact of the digitalization of life on migration and mobility. As we pursue our goals, we also aim at improving the theoretical understanding of migration and mobility processes, and at informing policy decisions in a world that is increasingly connected.

Current projects are organized around three main research areas:

• Measuring and Forecasting Migration
• High-Skilled Migration
• Integration and Segregation