On Feb. 14th, Thomas Soehl and Ian Van Haren from McGill University led an interactive workshop introducing attendees to quantitative methods and data sources available to migration researchers.
Thomas Soehl opened the workshop by highlighting the major considerations facing migration researchers when integrating quantitative data sets into their work. These considerations are often linked to what is missing from readily-accessible census data and population surveys. He pointed to the invisibility of short-term and return migrants in available data as an example of the constraints placed upon researchers. Professor Soehl then presented attendees with an overview of existing surveys that can be used for research projects and addressed their strengths and weaknesses. He spoke of the emerging potential for researchers to link data sources in order to gain exciting new insights into the social and economic realities of various immigrant populations, even across generations. He also highlighted the politicized nature of data collection, and stated that the role of the researcher is to extrapolate from data deeper truths about the experiences of migrants.
Ian Van Haren then introduced attendees to data sources available to researchers interested in studying Canada and/or Quebec. He walked participants through a variety of large data sets, providing examples of how they are useful for a variety of research aims. He explained the merits of sources such as the federal government’s Open Data initiative and the IMDB (Longitudinal Immigration Database), while also acknowledging their limitations. Ian Van Haren reinforced Thomas Soehl’s point that a researcher’s work can be constrained by the scope of the data available to them. Administrative data often do not include measures that may be critical to fully understanding the experiences of migrants. Nonetheless, the ease of access to quantitative data afforded to academics in the digital age as well as the development of new, user-friendly statistical tools provide exciting opportunities for migration researchers.
Attendees left the workshop with a great primer on methods of quantitative data analysis, and a toolkit of accessible sources on which to base future research.
Written by: Gabrielle Dickins