An approach to investigate European migration to the UK using the Facebook advertising platform - Francesco Rampazzo ...

An approach
to investigate European migration to the UK using
        the Facebook advertising platform

Francesco Rampazzo
F.Rampazzo@soton.ac.uk
@chiccorampazzo
University of Southampton

Migration

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Migration Data in the UK
International Passenger Survey                                      Annual Population Survey

§ Running since 1961,                                               § Running since 2004,

§ All major airports, sea routes, and train                         § Household Survey,
  stations,
                                                                    § Sample size 320,000,
§ 700,000-800,000 interviews every year of
                                           § Uses data from Labour Force Survey (LFS).
  which are 4,000 long-term migrant.

Link:                                                                  Link:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/surveys/informationforhouseholdsandindividuals/ https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/empl
householdandindividualsurveys/internationalpassengersurveyips          oymentandemployeetypes/methodologies/annualpopulationsurveyapsqmi

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Migration Data
Sources                          Limitations
1. National population censuses § Definitions (e.g. short term –
                                  long term migrant,
2. Sample surveys                 unregistered, irregular …)
3. Administrative sources        § Quality and Comparability
                                 § Timely information
                                 § Costs

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Can we estimate

      migration

with new data sources?

                         5

IOM, (2018). “Data Bulletin: Big Data and Migration”.Link:
https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/issue_5_big_data_and_migration.pdf
Blank, G., Graham, M. and Calvino, C. (2018) "Local Geographies of Digital Inequality", SOCIAL SCIENCE     6
COMPUTER REVIEW. 36 (1) 82-102. Link to the figure: http://geography.oii.ox.ac.uk/?page=internet-use-in-
britain

The Internet and Demography
1. For improving existing statistics

2. For adding new dimensions

3. For information on hard to reach population

Emilio Zagheni’s talk at the Plenary Session 4 on ‘Data innovation and big data for migration’ at the International Forum on
Migration Statistics (2018): https://oecdtv.webtv-
solution.com/4495/or/plenary_session_4_data_innovation_and_big_data_for_migration_.html

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Can new sources of data improve migration
statistics?
§ Blumenstock, 2012. ‘Inferring patterns of internal migration from
  mobile phone call records: evidence from Rwanda’.

§ Hawelka et al., 2013. ‘Geo-located Twitter as proxy for global mobility
  patterns’ .

§ Swier et al., 2015. ‘Using geolocated Twitter traces to infer residence
  and mobility’.

§ Fiorio et al., 2017. ‘Short-term Mobility and Long-term Migration’.

§ Zagheni et al., 2017. ‘Leveraging Facebook’s Advertising Platform to
  monitor stocks of Migrants’.
                                                                            8

Hard to Reach Population

§ State et al., 2014. ‘Migration of Professionals to the U.S. Evidence from
  LinkedIn Data’.

§ Pötzschke and Braun, 2017. ‘Migrant Sampling Using Facebook
  Advertisments: A Case Study of Polish Migrants in Four European
  Countries’.

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My Contribution

Use aggregated and anonymized Facebook’s Advertising
Data for estimating European Migration to the UK and create
a profile of these migrants.

Challenge to understand bias and representativeness of this
source of data.

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Facebook’s Advertising Platform

                                  11

12

13

Limitations

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/07/facebook-claims-it-can-reach-more-people-than-actually-exist-   14
in-uk-us-and-other-countries

Dataset
§ Countries: Great Britain, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland

§ Sex

§ Country of Origin: All Facebook profiles in the UK, All British, All Expats, Austria,
  Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain,
  Switzerland, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Romania.

§ Age groups: 15+, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-24, 35-39, 40-49,-50-59,60-54, 65+.

§ Education: All levels of education, Graduated, In college, In High School, In Grad
  School, Unspecified, No degree, High School.

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The dataset is made up by 38,000,000 Facebook
anonymized, aggregated group of individual in the UK, of
which 31,000,000 are British, and 7,000,000 are migrants.

                                                            16

European migrants: ONS and Facebook
Estimates

ONS: Annual Population Survey data for 2017;                      17
Facebook: European Migrants estimates for October 2017 age 15+.

Facebook distribution of Users within the UK

                                               18

Facebook Age Profile in the UK

                                 19

Facebook Education Levels of the Users in the
UK

                                                20

Conclusions
This data shows high potential for looking at the
characteristics of migrants.

It is necessary to understand the bias and
representativeness of this data.
Next steps: out of sample validation, combination of
traditional and new data sets.

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Thanks!
And thanks to my supervisors Agnese Vitali, Jakub Bijak,
Ingmar Weber, and Emilio Zagheni!

@chiccorampazzo

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