Gender Differentials in High-Skilled Mobility in Europe via Linkedin

Daniela Perrotta , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Elizabeth Jacobs, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Tom Theile, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Emilio Zagheni, Max Planck Institute for demographic Research

International high-skilled migration represents an increasingly important component of migration streams with a significant impact on the global flow of skills and on migration policies. Understanding the factors that explain why highly skilled workers move, and where they go, is of paramount importance in migration research, but generally difficult to measure and model. In this study, we use a largely untapped data source, the LinkedIn advertising platform, to retrieve the mobility patterns of professionals across countries in Europe and characterize the gender disparities among professionals migrating within Europe. Here we present some descriptive statistics to highlight the potential utility and challenges of employing these data to complement traditional survey data. Our findings reveal substantial variations in gender composition among different countries and age cohorts, with older high-skilled migrants showing a predominant male presence.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 61. EuroMigration Insights: Unraveling Patterns and Returns in European Mobility