MIMI dataset (Multi-aspect Integrated Migration Indicators dataset)

Nowadays, new branches of research are proposing the use of non-traditional data sources for the study of migration trends in order to find an original methodology to answer open questions about cross-border human mobility. The Multi-aspect Integrated Migration Indicators (MIMI) dataset is a new dataset to be exploited in migration studies as a concrete example of this new approach. It includes both official data about bidirectional human migration (traditional flow and stock data) with multidisciplinary variables and original indicators, including economic, demographic, cultural and geographic indicators, together with the Facebook Social Connectedness Index (SCI). It results from the process of gathering, embedding and integrating traditional and novel variables, resulting in this new multidisciplinary dataset that could significantly contribute to nowcast/forecast bilateral migration trends and migration drivers.

Thanks to this variety of knowledge, experts from several research fields (demographers, sociologists, economists) could exploit MIMI to investigate the trends in the various indicators, and the relationship among them. Moreover, it could be possible to develop complex models based on these data, able to assess human migration by evaluating related interdisciplinary drivers, as well as models able to nowcast and predict traditional migration indicators in accordance with original variables, such as the strength of social connectivity. Here, the SCI could have an important role. It measures the relative probability that two individuals across two countries are friends with each other on Facebook, therefore it could be employed as a proxy of social connections across borders, to be studied as a possible driver of migration.

All in all, the motivations for building and releasing the MIMI dataset lie in the need of new perspectives, methods and analyses that can no longer prescind from taking into account a variety of new factors. The heterogeneous and multidimensional sets of data present in MIMI offer an all-encompassing overview of the characteristics of human migration, enabling a better understanding and an original potential exploration of the relationship between migration and non-traditional sources of data.