PRI Brown Bag Speaker Series - Cassandra McMillan

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"Connecting the dots: Using social network analysis to untangle the factors driving international migration"

Demographers and social scientists have long been interested in understanding patterns of international migration. I argue that through the application of a social network perspective, we can better conceptualize flows of global migration and understand the social processes drive this phenomenon. First, I conceptualize the phenomenon of international migration as a social network, in which countries are individual actors and ties are migration flows that are weighted by the number of people making an international move. Using data on migration flows between 2010 and 2015, I next apply Exponential Random Graph Models and find that persistent patterns of global inequality, such as previous colonial ties and economic disparities, play a vital role in informing the movement of people on a global scale.