Workshop on Migration Data and Analysis

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Project Summary/Abstract We aim to establish an annual Summer Workshop in Migration Data and Analysis that will train a new generation of researchers to evaluate the causes and effects of twenty-first century migration streams by (1) training them in demographic, network and other data-analysis methods, (2) teaching them to leverage existing datasets, such as through imputation and longitudinal matching, and (3) instructing them in best-practices for new data-collection projects. “Migration” for these purposes includes both internal and international migration, conceived broadly as the movement of a person from one defined area to another, either within a country or across an international border. The 11-day training program will welcome trainees from across the country for an intensive, hands-on curriculum that combines a repeated core of instructional material with special topics on methods, data analysis and research design that change year-to-year. Trainees will learn skills, be able to advance their own research projects and build networks with peers and expert instructors. We also plan to build on-line resources for those who cannot attend the workshop, and as a long-term program legacy. Migration is one of the three pillars of population studies but its existence, causes and consequences are, in many respects, much more difficult to measure accurately than births and deaths. It is challenging to track and model human mobility over time and space. Scholars also face significant obstacles in measuring and understanding the repercussions of mobility for receiving societies and for migrants' well-being across social, health, economic and behavioral outcomes. Existing administrative, survey and other data sources are often incomplete and provide limited or poor coverage of key variables needed to evaluate migration and integration. Researchers need to learn which data are available across the scattered, diverse sources in existence; how to collect new data that overcome existing limits; and what can be done with existing data given limitations, including computer modeling of migration networks, techniques for imputing missing information, or how to triangulate statistical and field-based qualitative data sources. This annual workshop will be held at the University of California, Berkeley, leveraging the campus's institutional and human resources. We will call on migration experts on and beyond the Berkeley campus to be guest instructors and we will draw on the university's and PI's proven track record in training young scholars from diverse disciplinary and methodological backgrounds, including historically under-represented minorities and women. By bringing together training, sharing research, and networking, we will create a long-lasting community of scholars who can engage in data-driven interdisciplinary migration research for years to come.