Modeling the Interactive Patterns of International Migration Network through a Reverse Gravity Approach

Xuesong Yu, Kun Qin (), Tao Jia (), Yang Zhou and Xieqing Gao
Additional contact information
Xuesong Yu: School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Kun Qin: School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Tao Jia: School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Yang Zhou: School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Xieqing Gao: School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: The international migration network, comprising the movements of people between countries, is one of the most important global systems of interaction, which can reflect the complex international relations of economics, cultures, and politics and has huge impacts on global sustainability. However, the conventional gravity model cannot model its complicated interactions accurately. In this article, we propose a novel reverse gravity model using genetic algorithm to reconstruct the complicated interaction patterns with high accuracy. To verify the feasibility of our method, it was applied to a series of international migration networks. We found that the derived node attractions were highly correlated with socioeconomic factors and network metrics, and the calculated node positions outperformed the geometric centers from the perspective of human migration that related to economy and demography. Our approach could be a preferred choice to investigate the spatial–temporal interactive patterns in geographical space, facilitating comprehension of the mechanisms underlying their generation and evolution.

Keywords: reverse gravity model; international migration; human geography; genetic algorithm; spatial interaction networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/6/2502/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/6/2502/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:6:p:2502-:d:1358929

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().