The Feasibility of Conducting Panel Surveys With Migrant Populations: The Case of Venezuelans in Uruguay

Abstract

These Methods Note analyzes the feasibility of conducting panel surveys with migrant populations in Latin America, which is characterized by increasingly vulnerable migration flows and complex migration trajectories. Since evidence shows that the migration event is an attrition factor in panel surveys, we reflect on methods to minimize its impact and recommend how other researchers could adopt our applied method. We took three steps to accomplish this. First, we compared the sociodemographic profiles of respondents of Venezuelan origin who participated in the 2018 Ethno-Recent Immigration Survey (ENIR) in Uruguay, focusing on those who were recontacted in the ENIR's second round in 2021 versus those who were not. Second, we conducted a multivariate analysis by estimating logistic regression models to predict the probability of being contacted in the ENIR's second round. Finally, we systematized our observations of which factors enabled participants to be recontacted in the second round, thereby determining strategies to allow future studies to recontact participants. Our results indicate that, in addition to the informants’ individual attributes, it is imperative to consider the characteristics of their social networks to facilitate recontact.