A Decision Support System for Internal Migration Policy-Making

Abstract

This paper proposes a decision support system for internal migration policy in the Republic of Serbia, which uses machine learning and knowledge extraction methods to analyze data and identify key features for policy decision-making. Internal migration is an issue that creates uneven development and sustainability challenges in countries. More specifically, internal migrations are putting a big pressure on cities and urban areas, while leaving vast less-urbanized areas depopulated and unsustainable to future generations. This paper includes two machine learning models with an accuracy of 70% for predicting internal migration intensity in local selfgovernments (LSGs), as well as the proposed decision-support tool that achieves an accuracy of 66%. The proposed system maintains desirable properties of decision support systems such as correctness, completeness, consistency, comprehensibility, and convenience and allows the what-if analysis to evaluate appropriate policies for each LSG. The identified key features can be used to influence migration levels in LSGs and promote balanced development in Serbia.