FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE AS AN EMPIRICAL BASIS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A METHOD FOR MONITORING EXTERNAL MIGRATION OF CROATIAN CITIZENS

Official Croatian demographic statistics in the case of recent emigration do not allow real estimates, so new research methods are needed in the scientific approach. In this study, they were created based on non-standard procedures with the tools of digital demography. The presented method contributes by proving the feasibility of measuring and forecasting the emigration of Croatian citizens using the analytical applications Facebook and Google Trends. This is the first study of this type in Southeast Europe, but also the first to combine the sources of two databases (FB and GT) to supplement the shortcomings that each of these databases has individually. The paper shows that the increase in the search for terms in the Croatian language in Germany: “Mass in Croatian”, “Catholic mission” and “Croatian teaching” correlates with the increase in the emigration of Croatian citizens to Germany. In this approach, we show a new way in which data obtained through GT can be standardized for the purpose of comparison with official databases. The main advantage of this approach is the timely detection and identification of external migration, which plays an important role in various policies, from the labour market to the issue of taking demographic revitalization measures. With this approach, insights into migration trends are obtained a year earlier than official data, which can be used to model projections and predict further trends.