Integrated Modelling of European Migration: Age and Sex-Specific Estimates

• Activity Number: 187
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Bayesian Statistical Science
• Author(s): Peter W.F. Smith*+ and Arkadiusz Wisniowski
• Companies: University of Southampton and University of Southampton
• Keywords: Bayesian modelling ; MCMC methods ; migration models ; multinomial model ; Poisson model

Abstract

International migration data in Europe are collected by individual countries with separate collection systems and designs, and are therefore inconsistent in availability, definition and quality. Recently, a Bayesian model has been developed to overcome these limitations. It combines the observed migration data with covariate information and information provided by experts on the effects of undercount, measurement and accuracy of data collection systems to estimate migration flows by origin, destination and year. Here we extend the model to provide age and sex-specific estimates. Given origin, destination and year, a multinomial model is specified for the observed flows by age and sex. This model is respecified as a Poisson model with means related to the true flows through a log-linear model. Posterior summaries are obtained by using MCMC methods: samples from the posterior distribution of the true flows by origin, destination, age and sex are obtained by distributing samples from the posterior of the flows by origin, destination and year according to samples from the posterior of the parameters of the multinomial model.