PACES Migrant decision-making interview data for Italy 2024-2025 PACES Italy

Dataset Description

The dataset comprises data collected by semi-structured interviews with African migrants residing in Italy within PACES project. Interviews were conducted between August 2024 until March 2025 in Italy as part of WP5 (Task 5.2), and consisted of structured pre-defined questions. The interviews were conducted in English, French, Italian and Hausa. The interviews included close-ended and open-ended questions. The data were collected via KoboCollect application and the close-ended answers were exported to the xls files, cleaned and harmonised. Open-ended questions (and their recordings) resulted in verbatim transcripts in Word, which are part of this dataset. The individual observations are assigned codes (e.g., IT_01) consisting of a country code and a numerical value. For the close-ended questions, re-coding was done after the observations were ordered from the most recent to the least recent (based on int_date). These codes (ref_code) will be used for referencing purposes in the written outputs of the project. The interview codes (int_code) were used in the process of data collection and are part of this dataset. The number of observations is as follows: Italy (N=31), although only 30 interviews are complete. Some of the variables were generated based on the evidence retrieved from the transcripts of the interview recordings. The newly added variables were indicated in the codebook. Several changes have been made after the questionnaire was piloted. The initial version of the questionnaire included questions no. 26.2, 45, 48, 51, 54, 63, 94. After piloting the questionnaire, these questions were deleted due to their redundancy. The data for these questions are not included in the dataset. Some of the questions in the last section were re-ordered to reflect a better flow and a more logical structure. Some of the questions were reformulated (no. 32, 34, 38-44, 81) with a purpose to make them more understandable and clearer for the respondents. All the changes can be found in the further documentation (Interview protocol).

Background

This dataset is one of the key components of the PACES project, which aimed to understand how people decide to migrate, stay (or return for migrants). In particular, PACES sought to understand how people perceive major changes in society, how they understand their past-present and future, and how these factors influence their aspirations to stay or migrate.

Purpose

The data capture African migrants' perceptions of their current place of residence, what they expect in the future, both in society and in their personal lives, how they see migration and their own mobility preferences. This dataset also collects data on African migrants' preferences for and access to social protection.

Data Collection and Methods

The data in this dataset were collected through semi-structured interviews.

Research Limitations

The limited number of interviews make this dataset not representative. However, the interviews are in-depth and give participants the opportunity to highlight what is important for them in their lives and what matters in their decisions to stay, migrate or return.

Data Structure and Relationships Between Files

Each row in the Excel files corresponds to a Migrant for which there is also a corresponding transcript.

Value of the data for potential reuse

This dataset has high value as it records African migrants' perspectives on life in these cities at a particular point in time. In addition to migration scholars, scholars of Italian social history may be interested in these records.

Results

At the moment, this dataset has been used for an internal report. Preliminary results were presented at various events.

Conclusion

This dataset has important value but its in-depth nature makes it difficult to anonymise the data without losing meaning. For this reason, this dataset is closed access.

Access status:

Closed Access

Data availability:

The dataset is not accessible.
                               The repository record provides metadata only about the dataset.
Word files and Excel files PACES Closed Access — the information provided includes political opinions that could be harmful to the people who shared this information, should they be identified. The data has not been pseudonymised or anonymised, as these processes would remove information that is valuable and necessary to interpret the data. For this reason, the dataset is classified as closed access and is not publicly available. This data is a big component of the research on migration decision-making and it includes both qualitative and quantitative data. This version has been published with the README file included in the ZIP archive in both PDF and TXT formats.