Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Utah State University students helped with a global migration study that tapped into Facebook data.
- The United States had the highest net migration in 2022 of 181 countries studied, 3.27 million.
- But the study shows that the United States isn't alone, highlighting migration trends around the world.
LOGAN — A contingent of Utah State University students helped process data in a study on global migration that shows that the United States has experienced the highest net migration of the 181 nations reviewed.
The USU students weren't tapped to summarize the findings about migration trends, gleaned from "privacy protected records" from 3 billion Facebook users, according to the researchers who spearheaded the effort. Rather, the Utah undergraduates helped refine the pool of data for the main team that led the study, released last month. The data shows that net migration in the United States — immigrants coming in minus others leaving the country — totaled 3.27 million in 2022, top among the nations studied by a wide margin.
"They cleaned and validated vast amounts of raw data, developed machine learning models to detect anomalies in migration flows, researched the causes behind these anomalies and helped build a dynamic visualization dashboard that is now linked to the published research," Utah State said in a press release.
Participation gave the students from USU's Jon M. Huntsman School of Business Analytics Solutions Center "real-world experience" in helping solve complicated problems, said professor Chris Corcoran. "They're not just building technical skills. They're learning how to think critically, answer big questions and make a real impact," said Corcoran, who heads USU's Data Analytics and Information Systems Department.
The study, meantime, "Measuring Global Migration Flows Using Online Data," has garnered high-profile attention and comes amid heightened attention in the United States, in particular, on illegal immigration. Kathleen Kingsbury, opinion editor for the New York Times, said the data "reveals migration's true global sweep." The publication created a series of interactive maps highlighting migration trends around the world.
Among other things, the study offers a global perspective on migration. It's not just something that impacts the United States.
"We estimate that around 3.3 million people migrated each month in 2022 between the 181 countries in our study. In total, we estimate that 39.1 million people migrated internationally that year, approximately 0.63% of the population of the countries in our sample," it reads. Researchers from Meta, Facebook's parent company, and the University of Hong Kong and Harvard University wrote the study.
The 3.27 million net migration figure for the United States for 2022 represents migratory inflows of 4.11 million minus outflows of 841,000 people. Saudi Arabia had the second-highest net migration figure, 2.8 million, followed by the United Arab Emirates, 2.15 million. On the other side, Ukraine, facing an invasion from Russia, experienced a net outflow of 2.34 million, the biggest loss of any country.
Indeed, the study notes that immigration is a global issue, finding "particularly large flows of migrants" within Europe. "We also observe notably large flows within Latin America and the Caribbean, driven by migrants from Venezuela to nearby countries," it reads.
Among other findings, migrants are drawn to "relatively wealthy countries," the study found. "High-income countries comprise just 19% of the world population but represent 33% of global migrants," it reads.
The researchers tapped into Facebook data in coming up with the migration trends. "We determine a predicted country location for each user based on a combination of signals, including the self-reported location on Facebook profiles and the IP addresses used to connect to Facebook," the study reads.
