Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/0.21857/9e31lhzw8m
Immigration to Croatia: Big (Migration) Data Approach
Tado Jurić
orcid.org/0000-0003-4634-686X
; Catholic University of Croatia
Abstract
This research paper deals with the phenomenon of increased immigration of foreign citizens to Croatia, raises the question of the validity of official data on the number of foreigners in Croatia, and offers an empirical basis for the development of a Big Data model for predicting the future trend of immigration to Croatia. This paper hypothesizes that Big Data sources could be useful for determining immigration flows to Croatia, as well as for estimating and forecasting. This approach is enabling first insights into the identification of trends of migrants in the intentions to immigrate to Croatia and refugee flows. The methodological concept of here presented approach is to monitor the so-called “digital trace” of immigrants and refugees left on Google search and social networks Facebook (FB), Instagram and YouTube, and their geo-locations. The approach focuses on users that use social network platforms in foreign languages in Croatia as well as Google search with specific migration-related queries worldwide. Results: The analysis shows disproportion and therefore unreliability of immigration data coming from the Croatian Ministry of Interior (MUP), Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS), and Croatian Employment Service. The Big (Migration) Data approach shows a much higher number of immigrants in Croatia than official data. This approach shows that the number of Facebook and Instagram users in specific Asian and African languages is growing rapidly in Croatia, as well as in Ukrainian (and Russian) after the war outbreak in Ukraine. The tested FB and Instagram index is correlated with stepped-up immigration. The analysis of the FB groups of Asian and African immigrants in Croatia shows that those groups can be a valuable source for studying migration. One of the contributions of the second used method, Google search, and YouTube insights, is that it shows that by searching for specific migration-related queries and video material on the YouTube platform, the intention of users to migrate to the EU i.e., Croatia can be estimated. The insights obtained through this method align with official data (regarding trends), which, in turn, comes with a one-year delay. This makes this method particularly useful for timely assessments of the number of immigrants and modelling trends in immigration to Croatia.
Keywords
immigration; EU; Croatia; Big Data; foreign workers; refugees
Hrčak ID:
316743
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2023.
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