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The Culture of Migration of Rural Romanian Youth
Abstract
Within the context of a changing economic environment since 1990, the westward migration of Romanian citizens continues. As various recent surveys reveal, the potential for migration, especially among the young, is still high. This study analyses the economic and cultural sources of this enduring process. The focus is the rural young: on the ways in which they represent migration and see themselves as would-be migrants. It argues that the migration of young people is typically connected with the problematic transition to adulthood, in situations where jobs are insecure and difficult to obtain in the primary segment of the labour market. Migration turns out to be an indeterminate context linked to the uncertain socio-economic status of a prolonged transition to adulthood.
... Thus, currently, Germany is in the process of becoming their main destination country, with the UK in second place with more than 50,000 long-term Romanian immigrants in 2016 (OECD, 2018, p.46). Finally, empirical research suggests that individual or household aspirations, and the development of a Romanian 'culture of migration' (Sandu, 2005b;Horváth, 2008), has also shaped migration flows and patterns. ...
... Rather, as her siblings were already abroad sending remittances back to the family in Romania, this practice facilitated new consumption patterns and created new aspirations to earn extra money. In this case, the decision to migrate is also seen both as an expression of agency and a route to adulthood (Horváth, 2008) as well as an emancipation from the protective role of the parents. In some Romanian communities, this family migration strategy spread to other members of the community, contributing to the establishment of a 'Romanian culture of migration'. ...
... Migration remittances had a positive impact on the reduction of poverty and income inequality and accounted for 1.9% of GDP in 2016, from a peak of 4.5% in 2008 (Dospinescu & Russo, 2018, p.8). In some cases, these migrant remittances were an important factor in establishing a 'culture of migration' in rural communities (Cohen, 2004) or among Romanian youth (Horváth, 2008). Rooted in the income from remittances, stayers were able to develop new patterns of consumption and develop new aspirations for living standards that could influence the decision to embark on migration. ...
Ever since Ravenstein's work on the "Laws of Migration", the determinants/drivers of migration that is, the question: 'Why do people migrate?'-has been at the heart of migration studies. The exploration of migration/mobility processes also emphasizes the ways that migrants decide to leave and embark on their journey and how migratory practices may orient and motivate the (im)mobility decisions and aspirations of other migrant actors, establishing various 'cultures of migration' and creating new 'im-aginaries of mobility' that shape future movements. The paper aims to explore the changing aspirations of migration that influence the migration decision-making of Romanian migrants and the way these are shaped by micro, meso and structural factors in both sending and receiving countries.
... Individual or household economic constraints and/or expectations can similarly influence migration aspirations. Individuals lacking capital cannot afford to migrate but likewise financial insecurity can reduce one's 'capacity to aspire' (Carling, 2002;Carling & Schewel, 2017;Czaika & Vothknecht, 2014;de Haas, 2014;Horváth, 2008). Lower income and household vulnerability have been shown to reduce intentions to migrate (Czaika & Vothknecht, 2014;Loschmann & Siegel, 2013). ...
... Based on this foundation, individual capabilities, youth life aspirations and household capabilities showed significant effects on youth migration aspirations. Variables approximating social networks, financial stability, as well as residential and life satisfaction showed expected results and are comparable to previous studies that look at both youth (Bjarnason, 2014;Carling, 2002;Heckert, 2015;Horváth, 2008;Punch, 2002) and adult (Czaika & Vothknecht, 2014;De Jong et al., 1986;Haug, 2008;van Dalen & Henkens, 2008) samples; indicating that youth may have similar determinants of migration aspirations as adults. Heckert (2015) argued that there are distinct migration motives between youth and adults, which contradict current findings. ...
... Future-research. This study shows evidence that youth may have similar decision-making mechanisms as adults, yet factors such as transitions to adulthood or 'waithood' (De Jong & Graefe, 2008;Heckert, 2015;Horváth, 2008), role models (Beaman, Duflo, Pande, & Topalova, 2012), cultural exchange, media and social networks (Archer, DeWitt, & Wong, 2014) should not be neglected. Therefore researchers must question how youth migration decision-making is unique from adults. ...
This study investigates in what ways individual and household capabilities and their general life aspirations affect migration aspirations in particular, among Georgian and Moldovan youth. The utilized sample was extracted from nationally representative surveys and considers youth aged 11 to 19 (N=3,583). Multi-level, step-wise probit models are used to predict youth migration aspirations. Among the findings are that individual capabilities, aspirations, and household capabilities significantly impact youth migration aspirations, while household aspirations are statistically insignificant. The results further emulate the importance of residential satisfaction, the effects of gendered social norms and inequalities on youth migration aspirations.
... E nacionalizmus logikája szerint az államok és állam alatti csoportok az EU-t sokkal inkább az államok kormánya közötti szövetségként értelmezik, amelyben az állami szuverenitás hangsúlyosan jelen van, és nem pedig egy teljesen integrált kultúra megvalósítására törekvő jelenségként. Ugyanakkor, összhangban az EU-és NATO-bővítés híveinek reményeivel, a keleti kormányok által folytatott hagyományos nacionalista célok meglehetősen visszafogottak, hiszen a tagjelöltek igyekeznek megfelelni az EU acquis communautaire-jének 22 és/vagy a NATO tagsági akciótervének. A nacionalizmus hiánya viszont nem mindig jelent egyet az integrációpártisággal. ...
... század végén nem történt mindenben akkora horderejű változás, hogy azt klisészerűen ehhez az időszakhoz lehetne kötni. 22 A "cigány népesség története" nem csak kronológiai szempontból van Prokrusztész-ágyba szorítva. Ezt mondhatjuk arról is, amit Forray és Orsós történeti szempontból fontosnak tart. ...
... Az 1860-as évektől mintegy három évtizeden át a korabeli források az ún. kóborcigányok számát 15 22 István. 2005. ...
... If this social practice becomes a taken-for-granted rite of passage for young people in a region, the term "culture of (out-)migration" (see, for example, Hahn and Klute, 2007, for the African context) seems justified to label circumstances where outmigration is socially negotiated as an inevitable step in one's life or as "a crucial and necessary social act, that is quasi-compulsory for certain social categories" (Horváth, 2008:774). 2 In his paper on cultures of migration from rural Romania, Horváth (2008) highlights three different uses of the term, connected to (1) the factual existence of such a lived pattern of behaviour, (2) the norms and ideas organising the migration discussion, and (3) the possibility that migration may have acquired some symbolic functions. Horváth (2008) finds that these approaches share a claim to identify structures that are common in decision-making processes of young adults. ...
... 2 In his paper on cultures of migration from rural Romania, Horváth (2008) highlights three different uses of the term, connected to (1) the factual existence of such a lived pattern of behaviour, (2) the norms and ideas organising the migration discussion, and (3) the possibility that migration may have acquired some symbolic functions. Horváth (2008) finds that these approaches share a claim to identify structures that are common in decision-making processes of young adults. However, the term does not necessarily involve people actually moving "but rather the ideas that people share about these movements" (Easthope and Gabriel, 2008:173). ...
The patterns, motivations, and consequences of the outmigration of
young adults from rural areas is a classic topic in population geography. In
our paper, we first take a critical look at statistical analyses and
cartographic representations of migration patterns of young adults in rural
areas using Central Germany1 as an example, stressing the shortcomings of
quantitative analyses of residential mobility. We argue that migration is a
complex social process, taking place as the result of the interplay of
demographic, socio-structural, political, economic, and production-related
factors involving the mobile individuals, as well as other actors,
discourses, and practices. Following this, we discuss the emergence of
cultures of (out-)migration in rural areas characterised by heightened
mobility over longer periods of time and possible approaches to analyse
such regional phenomena. We hence aim at a deepening of the concept of
“culture of migration” and an expansion of the debate on motives and
practices of migration to include psychological approaches, as well as a
complex systems perspective.
... Romanian's transnational migration has been prevalent in more recent migration waves towards Europe (Ciobanu, 2015;Marcu, 2014), while mobility is discussed as 'a support strategy' at the individual and family level (Marcu, 2018). A central theme is the 'culture of migration', which is highlighted as a kind of 'rite of passage' among Romanian youth (Horváth, 2008), while, more recently, research has addressed the motivation-experience nexus of young Romanians (Sandu et al., 2018). ...
... A basic step taken by aspiring migrants is to imagine their future (s) 'away from home' (Bal & Willems, 2014). There is an extensive literature that uses the notion of a 'culture of migration' as a framework that encompasses various ways in which migration decisions are made and illustrates how individual decisions are shaped by the social practices and cultural features of the (potential) movers (Cohen & Sirkeci, 2011;Horváth, 2008;Kandel & Massey, 2002). Imagining oneself as travelling away from one's home becomes a vehicle through which migration aspirations come into being, leading to novel ways of transformation. ...
Migration is considered a meaningful strategy whereby both migrants and nonmigrants can improve their well-being and their livelihoods. The paper emphasizes the migrants' own perspective and sheds light on movers' noneconomic drivers. The concept of aspirations is treated as a 'missing link' that allows research into migration at its intersection with social inequalities, hierarchies and diversity. The paper's main aim is therefore to elucidate Romanian migrants' aspirations and to illustrate how these aspirations are informed by their agency and reflect their well-being both during and after the economic recession in Greece. Romanian migration provides sufficient grounds to invoke a more nuanced approach to migrants' well-being, which takes their 'dreams of fantasy' into account, along with their subjective experiences of inequalities and multiple belonging. This paper frames migrants' well-being theoretically as a relational process, but also in terms of the socio-spatial arrangements of migrant mobility/immobility acts. Romanians' narratives are analysed in relation to their social trajectories, spatial movement(s) and settlement patterns during their international and internal journey(s).
... Migration as such can be a kind of "rite of passage into adulthood" and cutting off the umbilical cord (Eade et al., 2006;King et al., 2016), or an attempt to leave the parents' shades (Moroşanu et al., 2018). Migration can also be a way to prolong youth by avoiding key educational and career decisions (Waters et al., 2011), and in less developed regions the only way to adulthood and independence (Horváth, 2008;Crivello, 2011;Punch, 2015). ...
... For people with low level of education, migration is often one way to escape the lack of opportunities on local labour market (Crivello 2011, Punch 2015), especially in communities with a strong migration culture (Horváth 2008, White 2010. In that case, migration plays an important role in supporting a quick transition to independent life (Silva 2013). ...
CEEYouth: The comparative study of young migrants from Poland and Lithuania in the context of Brexit. Combining public statistics, web survey and asynchronous interviewing This Working Paper introduces the theoretical considerations and empirical design of the ongoing research project, entitled: CEEYouth: The comparative study of young migrants from Poland and Lithuania in the context of Brexit, which is carried out by the Youth Research Center at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities and by the Public Policy and Management Institute (PPMI) in Vilnius, lasting from 2018 to 2021. It captures the life pathways of the young migrants (aged 19 to 34) from the new EU Member States, namely Poland and Lithuania living in the present-day Great Britain. Given the floating political climate, with a culmination of the approaching, yet still unknown form of Brexit, it influences social, economic and institutional areas of living. Young migrants are particularly exposed to the consequences of this unravelling events. The main goal of the project is threefold: (1) to uncover the social anchors of migrating youth; (2) to verify their awareness of the social risks, and (3) to track their coping strategies in the context of Brexit. The data is collected both at the individual (e.g. well-being, sense of belonging) and at the social (e.g. changes in the policies and living conditions) levels of analysis. The comparison of migrants from the same Central European region, yet different ethnic groups, but usually put in the analyses into the same 'box' might contribute to the better understanding of the experiences of young people facing the the Brexit and other unfolding structural events. The project will apply an innovative and comprehensive mixed method research design (MMR) combining qualitative and quantitative data which involves; secondary data analysis (public statistics from Labour Force Surveys: Polish, Lithuanian and British); where also non-migrants are captured; a dedicated exploratory web survey (CAWI) and asynchronous interviews lasting 24 months with young mobile Poles and Lithuanians. The MMR relies on the component composite design (Caracelli & Greene, 1997), balancing the qualitative and quantitative items (Creswell, 2009; Mason, 2006). Keywords: mixed method research (MMR), asynchronous interviews, web survey (CAWI), secondary data analysis, young migrants from Poland and Lithuania, Brexit
... Migracja może być także sposobem na przedłużanie młodości poprzez unikanie podjęcia kluczowych decyzji edukacyjno-zawodowych (Waters i in. 2011), a w mniej rozwiniętych regionach jedyną drogą do dorosłości i samodzielności (Horváth 2008, Crivello 2011, Punch 2015. niezależnie od znaczenia migracji dla bycia -lub nie -dorosłym, warto zaznaczyć, że młodzi ludzie doświadczają różnych form mobilności przestrzennej. ...
... Badanie dotyczyło społeczności o dużych tradycjach migracyjnych. rodzice młodych migrantów wysyłali sprzeczne sygnały, z jednej strony zachęcając potomków do wyjazdu jako ciekawego doświadczenia, z drugiej artykułując swoje obawy związane z ryzykiem samotnej starości, jeśli wyjazd dziecka okazałby się wyjazdem na stałe (Horváth 2008). ...
The previous scientific considerations have focused on the fact that international mobility of youth plays a significant role in the process of becoming adult (see Eade et al. 2006, Crivello 2011, Punch 2015, King 2017), as well as affects the further stages of transition from education to work and adulthood (see Sarnowska 2016). The aim of this article is to explain the importance of socialization in the family for migration trajectories of Polish young adults. To illustrate various migration strategies, the concept of broad and narrow socialization of Jeffrey J. Arnett (1995a) will be used.
It was assumed that Arnett’s concept is based on a particular dimension with two poles. Depending on a source of socialization, individuals experience broad or narrow socialization conditions as well as broad or narrow socialization influences. Particular attention will be given to parents as socializing agents. The analysis of the empirical material will be based on the qualitative longitudinal study with 14 people aged 25–34 with a university degree, who took one of the first works in life abroad. The second wave of the study had been conducted after one year to two years after the first one.
... That is, without minimising the challenges facing migrants, such challenges are nevertheless institutionalised within 'cultures of migration' (e.g. Ali 2007;Cohen and Sirkeci 2011;Horváth 2008;Kandel and Massey 2002), and are viewed by the 'home community' -both diasporic and in sılaas temporary and for the purpose of shaping the next generation of community pillars. A different diachronic model becomes necessary to describe trajectories linked to mobility, which expose contemporary garip yiğitler unmitigated to the uncertainties of gurbet. ...
Until today, anthropological studies of locality have taken primary interest in local subjects leading local lives in local communities. Through a shift of conceptual emphasis from locality to location, the present volume departs from previous preoccupations with identity and belonging. Instead, Locating the Mediterranean brings together ethnographic examinations of processes that make locations and render them meaningful. In doing so, it stimulates debates on the interplay between location and region-making in history as well as anthropology. The volume’s deeply empirical contributions illustrate how historical, material, legal, religious, economic, political, and social connections and separations shape the experience of being located in the geographical space commonly known as the Mediterranean region. Drawing from research in Melilla, Lampedusa, Istanbul, Nefpaktos/Lepanto, Tunisia, Beirut, Marseille, and elsewhere, the volume articulates location through the overlapping and incorporation of multiple social and historical processes. Individual contributions are linked by the pursuit to rethink the conceptual frames deployed to study the Mediterranean region. Together, the volume’s chapters challenge strict geopolitical renderings of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and suggest how the ‘Mediterranean’ can function as a meaningful anthropological and historical category if the notion of ‘location’ is reinvigorated and conceptualised anew.
... For younger generations, who were in their teens when socialism collapsed, this was no longer the case. The post-socialist period brought about massive unemployment and high uncertainty among the Romanian youth in the first two decades after 1989 (Horváth, 2008). For the young Roma in our study, this period most often meant poverty and enhanced marginalization. ...
Roma people are likely Europe's most discriminated and marginalized minority. In the past years, increasing attention has been paid to their migration to Western Europe and their limited social mobility in their countries of destination. Our article focuses on the "post-return" experiences of Roma and the changes generated by return migration in their communities of origin, a topic largely neglected so far. We build on recent debates around post-return positionality, asking how adult and old Roma returnees experience return. We thus contribute to the growing literature on return migration and lifecourse that distinguishes between the return migration of children and youth, that of adults, and that of older migrants. Focusing on Roma returnees, we employ an understanding of migration not just as a means of generating resources, but also as a learning process where the Roma population acquires new ideas and a sense of agency and dignity. Informed by long-term fieldwork in ethnically mixed localities in Romania (including participant observation and 76 semi-structured interviews), we inquire into the ethnic relations and negotiations between Roma and non-Roma populations. Migration results in a weakening of the economic dependency of the Roma on the non-Roma. In this new context, which is still marred by ethnic prejudice and inequality, we analysed how local interethnic relations were reshaped by the returned Roma's new consumption practices, new modes of communication, and new claims for equality. While adult Roma tend to demand equality and decent treatment, setting in motion a process of ethnic change, older returned Roma tend to maintain more submissive practices.
... If we compare the social housing situation in 2000 with 2019, we can see a decrease in the gap between Bucharest and the rest of the country, as well as an improvement in values, especially in Ilfov, Maramures , Satu-Mare, Sălaj, and Galat , i. In these counties, the improvement of housing conditions may have been due to the large inflow of income into households, due to temporary migration or a cross-border way of life [52,53], with the exception of Ilfov, a county strongly impacted by the suburbanization process of the capital Bucharest [54]. The Health and Life sub-index (HL SI) reflects the quantitative ratios of human infrastructure; the inclusion capacity (beds) of the health system, reported per 1000 inhabitants; and the efficiency of the health system, combined with the lifestyle of the population, reflected in the life expectancy at birth. ...
Measuring development is a long-standing challenge in the social sciences. Although multidimensional and multivariate approaches to development present several conceptual and/or methodological problems, some studies have pointed out that the unidimensional view of economic progress has failed on a large scale. The main purpose of our article is to elaborate a multidimensional composite index called the PEESH (population, economic, education, social, and health) Development Index, for measuring socio-economic development in Romania with a territorial profile. The PEESH DI index presented in this paper contains five sub-dimensions: population dynamics, economy and labor force, education, social conditions and housing, and health and life conditions, including 22 core indicators. The components of the resulting multidimensional index were weighted using factor analysis and then aggregated transversely into a composite index. Our results show that the differentiated increase of the indicators composing the PEESH DI resulted in a certain restructuring of the development hierarchy of Romania’s counties between 2000 and 2019. These empirical facts strengthen the idea that development cannot be reduced to only economic growth, it comprises an important social dimension as well. Finally, we have strongly argued in this paper that it is time to switch from a single-sided and reductionist perspective of the measurement of regional disparities, within the framework of the Cohesion Policy in the European Union, to a wider and multidimensional perspective, reflecting the complex character of the development process.
... Many contemporary studies show youth migration to be a complex set of socio-cultural (macro), familial (meso) and individual (micro) factors mutually interconnected and expressed as a motive to migrate. For example, Horváth (2008), while focusing on westward migrations of Romanian young people in the changing economic environment since 1990, discovered a nexus of macro-, meso-, and micro-level factors. Although economic and cultural factors play an important role, specific family situations and prolonged transition to adulthood, together with self-perception as "would-be migrants," appear as crucial motivations for migration. ...
Based on survey data from representative national samples of young people, we compared the impact of nine different factors of emigration desire among young people from 10 countries of Southeast Europe. The results show that (1) the impact of factors of necessity decreases with higher levels of Human Development Index (HDI), while factors of ambition tend to have stronger impact. We also found that across all 10 countries, (2) the experience of having been abroad is the strongest predictor of higher emigration desire, and that (3) the emigration desire of young people tends to decrease with higher levels of HDI.
... Lifecourse migration (Ní Laoire and Stockdale 2016) more broadly has been associated with providing opportunities for young migrants from central and eastern Europe to experience western cultures and lifestyles (Horváth 2008). Although all Polish interviewees in Ireland alluded to the financial incentives for migration, most also referred to additional factors influencing their decisions, especially expanded travel experience and enhanced knowledge of other societies and cultures. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed the rural idyll, as urban-dwellers seek greener, safer spaces. If the counter-urban trend appears for novel reasons, it does so along lifestyle mobilities’ well-worn paths. These paths often depend upon spatial inequalities. Yet, despite awareness that inequalities undergird mobilities, spatial inequalities have remained under-theorized in the lifestyle mobilities literature. This article remedies the gap through the concept of spatial justice. Initially asserting the ‘right to’ urban space, spatial justice has been recently re-thought at a regional scale, and is an emerging interpretation of rural marginalization and redress. As a normative concept, however, spatial justice risks simplistically measuring the distribution and presuming sedentarism. By applying spatial justice to lifestyle mobilities pre-pandemic and looking ahead to future shifts, we offer a nuanced, relational perspective on the theory and the field. Through qualitative case studies from rural and peripheral regions in Wales and Ireland, we show how inequalities and mobilities are complex and inter-related, with significant implications for regional sustainability, cohesion and identity. As the discourse of being ‘all in this together' has rapidly unravelled, we argue that theorizing spatial inequalities is an urgent task for futures beyond recovery – and that lifestyle mobilities are deeply implicated.
... Differentiating the collective aspirations of groups provides an approach to explore, on the one hand, how a culture of migration penetrates the decisional context of communities and whether particular groups have distinct ideas about (im)mobility. On the other, given that a culture of migration creates strong feedback mechanisms and, therefore, a framework to evaluate emigration (Horváth 2008), exploring the aspirations of specific collectives can elucidate the gain or loss of momentum of a migration culture (see Timmerman, Hemmerechts, and de Clerck 2014). Nevertheless, the distinction between individual and collective aspirations is not straightforward, as the term ''aspiration' marks an intersection of personal, collective, and normative dimensions' (Carling and Collins 2018, 915). ...
The aspiration-capability framework introduces four (im)mobility categories – mobility, voluntary immobility, involuntary immobility and acquiescent immobility – which have received considerable attention. However, few studies have examined how people move across such categories. Drawing on the migration experiences of 17 self-identified Latin American gay individuals, this paper shows how prospective migrants can be pushed into a state of involuntary immobility by their families, and how they can adapt to overcome immobility and fulfill their migration aspirations. The article finds, firstly, that heteronormative values and familial expectations regarding sexuality shape the possibility of mobilizing the family’s economic, informative and emotional resources. Secondly, I discuss the adaptation strategies that individuals use to surpass involuntary immobility. To understand movement across (im)mobility categories, as well as the role of social boundaries for migration, this paper differentiates between individual and collective migration aspirations and capabilities. In doing so, the article introduces an approach to explore how interactions between social groups and their individual group members shape the (im)mobility projects of the latter.
... Kandel and Massey (2002), who analysed the reasons behind Mexican migration towards the USA, coined the term 'cultures of migration' to conceptualise the set of social and normative expectations that encourage people to move. 'Cultures of migration' may be defined, among other factors, by the generational transmission of social values regarding migration, the existence of transnational networks that spread over space and time, and the cultural celebration of migrants and their achievements (Laurent 2018;Horváth 2008;Ali 2007;Kandel and Massey 2002). 'Staying behind' , in such cultural contexts, may become experienced as a failure. ...
This section introduction explores the imaginative dimension of mobility in two West African countries, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Building on literature that highlights the existential dimension of movement and migration, the authors explore three socio-cultural patterns that inform representations of im/mobility: historical continuities and the longue-durée perspective on mobile practices, the association of geographical mobility with social betterment, and the interaction between local aspirations and the imaginary of global modernity. The three individual contributions by Bedert, Enria and Ménard bring out the work of imagination attached to im/mobility both in ‘home’ countries and diaspora communities, and underline the continuity of representations and practices between spaces that are part of specific transnational social fields.
... 1 This widespread orientation to outmigration is connected to the history of Soviet industrial towns in the North that were settled and populated by work migrants from all over the Soviet Union. Consequently, a "culture of migration" endures in the public discourse that urges young people to move away (Ali 2007;Horváth 2008, see Komu and Adams, this volume). There are two main reasons usually cited with regard to youth outmigration: the lack of job opportunities and limited possibilities for education (Stockdale 2002). ...
... We suggest that one might approach rural youth outmigration in northern Finland as a manifestation of a "culture of migration" (see Massey et al. 1993;Horváth 2008). In addition, we wish to focus on young people's own understandings of wellbeing and on the kind of role mobility plays in these. ...
... 8. In aree caratterizzate da una migrazione economica di lunga durata, per esempio la valle di Oaxaca in Messico (Kandel, Massey, 2002), o Capo Verde (Carling, Åkesson, 2009) è stato osservato come un numero crescente di individui consideri la migrazione come il canale più desiderabile di mobilità sociale. Alcuni studiosi hanno utilizzato il concetto di "cultura dell'emigrazione" (Horváth, 2008;Ali, 2007;Cohen, 2004;Massey et al., 1998) per definire un contesto culturale in cui l'emigrazione diventa associata, nella percezione comune, al successo economico, alla realizzazione personale e alla ricchezza della famiglia. ...
... I contend that the response to this question is three-fold. First, I argue, contrary to previous scholarship indicating that living within a 'culture of migration' promotes further migration as migratory processes become part of the collective social imaginary (Horváth 2008;Massey, Goldring, and Durand 1994), focusing on youth who desire immobility makes visible how living within a culture of migration can also produce a will to remain. In the next section, I show how, for the youth with whom I worked, witnessing the impacts of extensive migration for their community and family produces an aspiration to stay put. ...
This paper ethnographically explores how indigenous Guatemalan youth come to desire non-migration despite local social-geographical contexts of extensive mobility. The 2014 the emergence of a ‘crisis’ of youth migration at the U.S. Southern border drew attention to the deep and longer-term reality of untenable conditions in the countries young people are fleeing. While significant scholarship has been dedicated to exploring the causes and conditions propelling youth migration, the experiences of young people en route, their reception in destination countries, and concerns over youth return and reintegration, little attention has been paid to young people who, in contexts of extensive migration, strive to remain in their communities of origin. This paper disrupts the mobility bias in migration studies and attends to the local and historically situated forces through which migratory contexts are heterogeneously experienced and engaged. In so doing, this research provides ethnographic material to demonstrate how desired immobility emerges in an overwhelmingly mobile context, illustrates the social, historical and structural fields that engage youth (im)mobilities, and argues for the analytic relevance of striving as a means by which desire is enacted (in this case the desire to stay put).
... However, according to Mau (2005), Taggart and Szczerbiak (2002,2004), Toader and Radu (2018) European integration has not achieved economic benefits for all citizens. The prospect of EU accession has triggered rural outmigration (Horváth 2008;Roman and Voicu 2010) and land grabbing (EP Report 2015). In turn, regional disparities between rural and urban areas deepened (Goschin 2014). ...
Progressive agrarian populism and food sovereignty have recently been discussed as having the potential to erode the right‐wing populist agitation that is currently widespread in rural areas. However, these ideas are unpopular in post‐socialist Eastern Europe. This paper studies the Romanian ‘new peasant’ movement ‘Eco Ruralis’ – a member organisation of La Vía Campesina. It argues that there is a critical mismatch between the progressive objectives of Eco Ruralis and the main worries of villagers in Romania. It also demonstrates the ways in which communist legacies influence societal attitudes towards capitalism and socialism, making the adoption of La Vía Campesina’s anti‐capitalist and pro‐socialist ideologies problematic. Finally, it shows that the concept of ‘food sovereignty’ can be misleading, as this concept is alien to the Romanian countryside. Instead, we reveal that other sustainable practices, such as seed sovereignty, are more culturally appropriate and may play an important role in eroding right‐wing sentiments in the countryside.
... With regard to the prospect channel, an important impact is the emergence of migration cultures in locations with dynamic migration networks, where many people expect to migrate, for example in Romania (Horváth 2008) or Poland (White 2016). As for the diaspora channel, the concept of a diaspora in the sense of a population of migrants feeling collective responsibility towards the homeland is problematic in the case of CEE countries (see below). ...
The article presents a novel approach to understanding the impact of migration on sending countries. It looks at the topic the other way round from conventional approaches. Rather than only studying migrants’ influence on countries of origin, as migration scholars naturally do, I recommend first mapping social trends in sending countries to understand the most significant changes, before analysing why change takes place. Such analysis involves qualitative sociological research to understand the causes of change: how social remittances and more indirect migration influences combine with other factors. Focusing on sending country residents, the approach also applies concepts and findings from receiving societies research. The approach encourages a thorough investigation of transnational social space, seeing sociological phenomena such as socialisation or social activism taking place across international borders. The case study is twenty-first century Europe, with its dense and diverse migration patterns. The article discusses my experience of applying the approach to Poland, suggesting that migration exposure’s special role may be to reinforce national trends (e.g. towards more open-to-difference attitudes) even in social groups and geographical locations which are generally more conservative. Finally, I discuss how the approach might be applied in other post-communist countries, as well as further afield.
... (Hernanz and Jimeno, 2017) When looking at the Romanian context, the issue is even more relevant since employment opportunities as well as labour-market institutions are related to young persons' decision to migrate to other countries. Indeed, Horvath (2008) argues that the migration of young people from Romania is very much connected with their problematic and prolonged transition to adulthood, mainly due to their difficulty in finding a job, as well as the high level of job insecurity. ...
This study is based on survey data on a sample that is representative for 15-to-29-year-old residents of Romania, and is part of a broad comparative research that includes nine other countries from southeast Europe, an under-researched and overlooked region with only scarce systematic data and analyses: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. The analyses are structured by four categories of topics: (1) Education and employment, (2) Socioeconomic status and mobility, (3) Socio-political attitudes and political engagement, (4) Family life and leisure time.
... Not every nation in the world is on equal footing in conditions of technological improvement and power. Thence, there is a difference between legal and illegal immigration (Horváth, 2008). ...
International migration is a functional component of modern societies, both wealthy and poor. In a way, one can see that migration solves the unequal distribution of people and opportunities. Despite the political pressure to control immigration, almost all changes in politics have broadened the scope of legal immigration to allow for settlement by refugees, farm workers (in case of urbanrural migrations), "illegal" immigrants with long-term residence in the country, and workers in great demand to move around freely. Our main research objective is to demonstrate, using the available data as well as the analysis of the metadata and the research literature, that migration, especially labour migration, has a narrow connection with the issues of national security. Large outflows and inflows of people might bring about security threats linked to organized crime, terrorism and the spread of radical ideas. Moreover, migration is responsible for the brain drain of young and well-educated people who are searching for higher wages and better opportunities abroad depriving their own home country of valuable human capital. Our paper analyses the phenomenon of international migration perceived from the angle of migration culture that goes hand in hand with recent globalization trends all around the world. We come to a solid conclusion that migration policy should be treated as an important element in establishing well-ballanced national security policy in the globalized world. It might be of a particular interest for the migration scholars, labour market economists and stakeholders and policy-makers dealing with the issues of national security, public and migration policies, as well as sustainable economic development.
... (Hernanz and Jimeno, 2017) When looking at the Romanian context, the issue is even more relevant since employment opportunities as well as labour-market institutions are related to young persons' decision to migrate to other countries. Indeed, Horvath (2008) argues that the migration of young people from Romania is very much connected with their problematic and prolonged transition to adulthood, mainly due to their difficulty in finding a job, as well as the high level of job insecurity. ...
Although the persistence of adolescents’ political attitudes and behaviors into adulthood is a perennial concern in research on developmental psychology only a very small proportion of youth studies include non-Western societies.
This study is based on survey data on a sample that is representative for 15-to-29- year-old residents of Romania, and is part of a broad comparative research that includes nine other countries from southeast Europe, an under-researched and overlooked region with only scarce systematic data and analyses: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. The analyses are structured by four categories of topics:
(1) Education and employment, (2) Socioeconomic status and mobility, (3) Socio-political attitudes and political engagement, (4) Family life and leisure time.
... Con la caída de Ceaușescu, Rumania se estaba transformando definitivamente en un país de emigrantes. El proceso de desindustrialización posterior al 1989 tuvo importantes consecuencias sobre todo para la población rural, cuya economía dependía, a la vez, del trabajo asalariado en las industrias de los centros urbanos y de una agricultura de subsistencia practicada a nivel familiar (Horváth, 2008). Durante la transición hacia la economía de mercado esta forma de organización social se desintegró, contribuyendo a una nueva tendencia de movilidad: la mano de obra rural, que solía viajar a diario hacia los centros urbanos, convirtió su experiencia de movilidad interna en una migración, prevalentemente circular, hacía el extranjero (Sandu, 2005). ...
The thesis is a collection of articles, book chapters and working papers that investigate the experiences and the expectations of a group of Romanian Roma young people living in poverty between Madrid and a rural village in southern Romania. Their life stories seem to develop halfway between the reproduction of socio-economic inequalities and the challenge of social mobility. Based on a broader, multi-sited, collaborative ethnography, this work aims to unveil the interplay between structural constraints and individual agency that shapes the interaction between spatial, social and educational im/mobility in both transnational localities. The nexus between educational choices, housing problems and transnational mobility is considered in the broader context of both the policies for ‘Roma’ in Europe and the Spanish financial crisis.
... Students or recent graduates see international work experience as a chance to enhance educational or career prospects (Inkson and Myers 2003;Simpson 2005;Heath 2007;King 2010). Jobseekers may search for more attractive work environments as part of their education-employment transition which economic crises made difficult to access at home (Hof 2018;Horváth 2008;King et al. 2016, 37-41). Scholarly analyses variously demonstrate how education, labour market and other institutionalised opportunities combine with cultural motivations to propel youth to move abroad. ...
This paper examines Japanese ‘youth’ in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties who participated in temporary migration to Dalian, a northeastern Chinese city, at a turning point in their life course. They left economically stagnant Japan to work in the digital service outsourcing sector targeting the Japanese market, by providing remote customer service in their native language. While the workers enjoy some perks of corporate employment and skilled migrant status, migration reduces their salaries to levels comparable to Japanese minimum wages, and the constantly shifting nature of immigration control and offshore outsourcing renders their presence fundamentally precarious. Based on semi-structured interviews, I argue that geographical mobility affords a temporary refuge from the normative expectations of a settled adult life, but in this liminal time–space, classed and gendered life course norms continue to frame the migrants’ interpretation of their presents and futures. My findings show that the remote service workers simultaneously engage in multiple temporalities of suspended life back home, increasing stasis in the present and anticipated futures through imagined migration. The analysis illustrates that cross-border mobility produces freedom from the constraints of expected life transitions, but also potential entrapment through new modes of exploitation.
Ländliche Räume sind wieder »in«: In Zeiten der Corona-Krise gelten sie als vermeintlich sicherere Orte, Investor*innen entdecken das Land als einträgliches Geschäftsfeld und Eigentümer*innen profitieren von Preissteigerungen bei Grund und Boden. Gleichzeitig entwickeln sich ländliche Räume stark auseinander: in prosperierende und abgehängte Regionen. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes liefern eine Bestandsaufnahme der Forschung zu ländlichen Ungleichheiten und bieten Ansatzpunkte für eine kritische Landforschung und progressive Perspektiven auf ländliche Räume. Neben theoretischen Überlegungen geht es dabei auch um sozialen Wandel, die Neuordnung von Stadt-Land-Verhältnissen sowie die Themen Migration, Identität und Populismus.
Ländliche Räume sind wieder »in«: In Zeiten der Corona-Krise gelten sie als vermeintlich sicherere Orte, Investor*innen entdecken das Land als einträgliches Geschäftsfeld und Eigentümer*innen profitieren von Preissteigerungen bei Grund und Boden. Gleichzeitig entwickeln sich ländliche Räume stark auseinander: in prosperierende und abgehängte Regionen. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes liefern eine Bestandsaufnahme der Forschung zu ländlichen Ungleichheiten und bieten Ansatzpunkte für eine kritische Landforschung und progressive Perspektiven auf ländliche Räume. Neben theoretischen Überlegungen geht es dabei auch um sozialen Wandel, die Neuordnung von Stadt-Land-Verhältnissen sowie die Themen Migration, Identität und Populismus.
Migration systems shape social life, including the timing and sequencing of key demographic behaviors such as marriage, childbearing, and household formation. Existing research has linked migration and marriage in Mexico through various mechanisms but provides less guidance on whether aspirations for migration and marriage are closely linked. Given that union formation is distinct within migration contexts, this article focuses on adolescents’ plans for marriage and the extent to which migration aspirations shape the desired timing of their union formation, by examining how four distinct measures of migration aspirations are related to adolescents’ ideal ages at union formation in rural Jalisco, Mexico. Drawing from data on adolescents ( n = 1,403 adolescents) from the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes (FAMELO) project (collected in 2017–2018), it uses ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to analyze how various types of adolescent migration aspirations — including permanent migration, temporary labor migration, leaving the community at any point in time, and expected migration location — are associated with adolescents’ ideal age at union formation. Results reveal that all migration aspirations are associated with higher ideal ages at the marriage in unconditional models. However, these associations are not always robust to the inclusion of other factors, including adolescent aspirations in other life domains, particularly education. Results highlight the ongoing transition from a “culture of migration” to a “culture of education” in Mexico. Given that Mexican migration has changed dramatically in recent years, the findings presented here provide a window for understanding how these changes in migration are reflected in adolescent goals and likely subsequent behavior.
Although sexuality is one of the fundamental physiological human needs, social views, ethics,
and norms have been crucial in defining people’s sexual activity and the way they relate with
each other around this topic. Reflecting upon the Romanian society, this paper aims to
identify and understand the discrepant influences that strongly impact the young
generation’s views on sexuality. One is represented by the education system, and the other
one is depicted through the media, specifically by trap music. In the last decades, sexuality
has become more accepted through the filter of liberalisation, and its potential to sell is used
by many young women, as means to achieve economic capital. Statistics show more than a
third of the Romanian population lives in rural areas, and unemployment is a major cause for
poverty for a large number of people (Popescu, 2013 p.120). The music industry is allowing
the shift towards liberalisation, emphasising a prominent use of sexual references that
attained the sympathy of the young generation. At the same time, the education system fails
in implementing enough opportunities for social change, to overcome the sexualisation
within the capitalist Romanian industries. Open-ended interviews with three secondary�school teachers from a rural region are questioning the right approach on sexual education,
through the filter of social norms, beliefs, and values. Although the respondents do not claim
to have any political identity, they reject certain liberal movements, admitting that the
education should conform to a conservative model. Undeniable repercussions of the
communist regime have shaped the collective mentality through a censoring filter over the
past. The prohibited, repressed, and exclusively reproductive use of sexuality has been firmly
overpowered by the shift towards liberalisation through the means that will be explained
further in this paper. Trap music has challenged the previous significance attributed to sexual
relationships, with an increased use of explicit language and sexist attitudes as a social source
of inspiration for the artistic creation. Consequently, the attitudes that are promoted in trap
music are merely considered inappropriate by the participants, who prefer an old-school
model of teaching sexual behaviour.
Fresh food supply chains in Europe’s transnational agribusinesses depend on cheap, non-unionised, and privately managed labour from low-wage eastern European countries. The costs versus benefits of this phenomenon are under-studied. By examining seasonal farm migration from Romania to Germany, we argue that the Covid-19 pandemic is, for farmworkers, a Janus-faced event. On the one hand, it has worsened the precarity of migrant farmworkers. Changes in the German state’s pay legislation that excluded workers from social benefits, and the reluctance of the German state to enforce labour legislation to the full in the early stages of the pandemic sharpened what we have termed the structural disempowerment of migrant farmworkers. Romanian seasonal workers have had little choice but to implicitly subsidise the costs of German farm products. At the same time, the health crisis has made their work visible and led to processes that challenge the perception of migrant workers as passive agents. In this regard we refer specifically to (i) the supportive media coverage in Romania, Germany, and beyond and (ii) the assertion of union-affiliated farm and abattoir labour activism in Germany. These planted seeds of contestation, and collective action against abuses sprang up in several farms. Combined with a flare-up of Covid-19 in German abattoirs in the summer of 2020, these campaigns for visibility and improved working conditions led the German government to alter legislation so as to better protect seasonal labour in the fresh vegetable and meat sectors. Going forward, the tension between these two opposing sociopolitical drivers may shape the governance of seasonal labour in Europe.
Keywords: Romania, Germany, migrant agricultural workers, seasonal agricultural work, food supply chains, Covid-19, labour unions
"A hybrid that originated in the traditional peasant music, Romanian popular music (muzică populară), as it is known from radio broadcasts, TV shows or live performances from all around the country, was developed by mixing the village music of the twentieth century with techniques and principles borrowed from the classical repertoire and other light genres. Muzica populară emerged in the interwar years, but was perfected and regulated by the communist regime, becoming one of the favorite genres of the rural and urban working class and, nowadays, it continues to have a great appeal among all age categories. Our aim was to discover the motivations that lead the village youth of Romania to involve themselves in activities dealing with muzica populară, in particular, or with folklore and traditions, in general. To accomplish this, we conducted several interviews with young people from Sălaj county, from which a few patterns emerged: the rapid familiarization with the genre due to specific TV channels; the acquired taste due to grandparents raising their grandchildren in the absence of the parents who migrated in the 2000s; the expressed devotion to the local culture and their willingness and duty to preserve and promote it. We can also explain the success of muzică populară among young people by structural factors that are at work in the whole society, namely the lack of interest of post-communist authorities in building and/or maintaining a cultural and educational infrastructure in the rural areas. Thus, this paper aims to explore contemporary rural pop culture by considering the connection between the deterioration of the cultural infrastructure in rural areas, transnational migration and the exponential development of an industry devoted to the recent muzică populară. Keywords: muzică populară, folklore music, folk traditions, rural youth, cultural infrastructure, transnational migration, niche TV channels. "
The migration culture concept is a complex phenomenon. This chapter summarizes the drivers behind the movement of people. The focus is on the importance of push factors (economic and non-economic) as well as on societal values and practices in the country of origin. The chapter concludes with a conceptual model of migration culture, consisting of the push factors and values that encourage emigration. Our broad understanding of emigration in this chapter encompasses people’s willingness to emigrate, the desire (or lack thereof) to return to the home country, and the willingness (of lack thereof) of returnees to re-emigrate.
The concept of the culture of migration provides a much-deeper understanding of the drivers behind the movement of people. Focusing on migration culture phenomenon to facilitate a better understanding of its roots, the chapter begins with the introduction of the first insights of migration culture at the end of the twentieth century. Then, the studies reviewed on the culture of migration continue with the presentation of the studies of the twenty-first century presenting a deeper analysis of migration culture. Finally, the identification of the culture of migration allows the conclusion on the factors, describing the culture of migration.
Transnational mobility in the EU has become a key factor for supranational integration, equal life chances and socioeconomic prosperity. This book explores the cultural and social patterns that shape people’s migration, the historical and contemporary patterns of their movement, and the manifold consequences of their migration for themselves and their families. Exploring the links between social and spatial mobility, the book draws attention to the complexity of moving and staying, as ways in which social inequalities are shaped and reinforced. Grounded in research conducted in Germany and Poland, the book develops the concept of "cultures of transnationality" to analytically frame the variety of expectations involved in migration, and how they shape migration dispositions, opportunities, and outcomes. Cultures of Transnationality in European Migration will be of broad interest to scholars and students of transnational migration, European development, cultural sociology, intersectionality and subjectivity. Specifically, it will appeal to scholars interested in the cultural ramifications of moving and staying as well as those interested in the interplay of gender, ethnicity and class, in the making of social inequality.
There is no international regime to comprehensively govern transnational migration in all of its facets. But scholars and policymakers acknowledge and study the existence of the global governance of migration. Though most have focused on disaggregating the global governance of migration into its separate regimes (refugees, labour, travel, etc.), I argue here that much of this architecture addresses the phenomenon of mixed migration. I define the global governance of mixed migration as involving a range of legal regimes impinging on actors simultaneously; shared understandings about the nature of mixed migration, including motivations and drivers; and the existence of different bilateral, regional and global arrangements for addressing the phenomenon. I critically review the interdisciplinary research agenda on the global governance of mixed migration, covering its emergence over the last twenty years, its broad empirical and conceptual dimensions, the major debates and promising directions for future research.
The vast majority of literature on migrant masculinities presents situations where migration challenges normative forms of manhood—“undoing gender.” Yet for the Romanians who come to London, migration has the opposite effect, as men are drawn into the wide and lucrative building industry. The article follows constructions of masculinity through an analysis of: (1) the working environment of Romanian men, generally characterized as ridden with risk; (2) the gender dynamics in the household; and (3) the temporariness of the men’s migration in London. The article demonstrates that, in this case, mobility does not entail a “gender compromise,” but a reinforcement of hypermasculine traits, necessary to succeed in an environment seen as highly competitive and risky.
The thesis examines marriage and masculinities in motion through the experiences of Pakistani migrant husbands in Birmingham, UK. Drawing on the detailed life history narratives of sixty-two migrant husbands, and fourty-three community member interlocuters who were aware of and/or in contact with migrant husbands, over a thirty-month period (February 2016-August 2018), the thesis explores and is organised in three key sections: (a) aspirational masculinity, (b) liminal masculinity, and (c) (re)assertive masculinity. The first section of the thesis traces the shifts in the aspirations of migrant husbands before and after marriage and migration, showing that these shifts are experienced in relation to the masculine ideal of ‘transnational patriarch’. The second section explores the impact of marriage and migration on the experiences of masculinity. I trace the ways that migrant husbands can experience precarity, heightened levels of vulnerability, and domestic violence. As a result, I argue that migrant husbands experience a ‘liminal’ [in-between] masculinity. The final section of the thesis explores the ways in which migrant husbands practice agency and resistance. Three significant arenas of agency and resistance are highlighted: (1) engaging with Songs of Sorrow, a musical form that extends from Sufi Qawwali, (2) by engaging in religious practices that are unique to Birmingham’s ‘Sufi-scape’ in which migrant husbands develop a ‘prophetic masculinity’, (3) and by way of appearing financially secure in order to maintain their identity as ‘transnational patriarch’. The thesis engages with and contributes to the field of men and masculinity studies, migration studies, human geography, and the anthropology of Islam. The research also contributes to and paves a way forward for the ‘decolonization of Muslim men’.
This paper examines the changing experience of middle-class labour in an economic downturn and its relation to migration motivations. At the heart of this paper is an intriguing question of why educated middle-class workers would leave metropolises with high standards of living to work in a provincial city abroad where they perform routine tasks and earn less than they would in comparable positions back home. An analysis of in-depth interviews with Japanese service workers in China’s digital outsourcing industry focuses on their educational background and employment experience prior to migration. Based on my findings, I argue that relatively educated migrants use their diminishing middle-class resources to access an occupational niche abroad, in order to (temporarily) evade the increased risk of class slippage in the society of origin. Japan’s experience of a long-term economic slump since the early 1990s provides a fruitful point of comparison for studies that investigate changing youth transitions from education to employment and their relationship to migration patterns and class mobility in economically stagnant nations elsewhere. I critically engage with the literature on middling migration to highlight the usefulness of a historically sensitive and relational perspective from which to study middle-class migrants.
This book examines the commercialisation of domestic and care work through private agencies that organise transnational care arrangements by brokering migrant workers.
The book focuses on the emergence of private for-profit home care agencies following the 2011 extension of the Free Movement of Workers to Eastern European Countries agreement in Switzerland. The agencies recruit migrant women from these countries and place them in private households for elderly care. This book explores how circular labour migration for these care workers is facilitated. In the form of a mobile ethnography, it traces their journey from Eastern European countries to Switzerland – from when care workers find employment and are recruited by agencies to when they arrive at their designated households. From the agencies’ analytical standpoint, the book examines the recruitment and placement practices of the home care agencies and their role in facilitating migration.
Brokering Labour Migration offers an understanding of new migration patterns and highlights fundamental changes in migration control with the extension of free movement of workers in Switzerland to lower-wage countries in Eastern Europe. It will be an invaluable resource for academics and scholars of geography, anthropology, sociology, and gender and migration.
While important and timely, the recent effort to 'relaunch' migration systems as emergent entities is premised on a mischaracterization and subsequent dismissal of decades of research showing that systems are ultimately expressed in geographic structures in the form of migration networks comprised of a set of places that are connected to one another by migration flows. In this paper, we reconcile this relaunch with past research on migration systems by considering whether and how changes in some of the actors and dynamics that create and sustain migration systems are expressed in corresponding changes in the geographic structure of migration flows. By elucidating these linkages, our work helps to strengthen the aforementioned relaunch of migration systems by ensuring greater continuity with prior research and, going forward, the continued utility of a migration systems perspective for diverse audiences and issues.
Culture nowadays is a key concept in migration scholarship. The notion of culture is used as a factor to make sense of migration patterns in communities with long-standing traditions of migration (“cultures of migration”). Culture also pertains to the products of migration as cultural representations of the acts of migration or the cultural shifts and transformations taking place when people move from one place to another (“migration of culture”) (Levitt 2010). Scholarship on migration thus particularly draws on notions of culture as a driving force, or as the outcome and representation of collective action. This book extends this perspective by accentuating the performative and hierarchical effects of culture and thereby link culture to social inequality. By showing how cultural imaginaries and boundaries restrict and enable action, this book explores the many links between migration and inequality, which are usually assessed indirectly through topics like migration and development or social mobility of migrants in the immigration country (similar critique is raised by Faist 2016).
Despite growing research on transnational families and children's welfare in migrant-sending countries, there is a dearth of information about the prevalence of, what we call, parental absence via migration, especially relative to other sources of parental absence, and a lack of estimates that are comparable across populations and places. This makes it difficult to determine the scale for policy interventions, and to justify future research on transnational families and children's welfare. Using harmonized surveys covering eight Latin American countries and Puerto Rico, validated by nationally representative census and survey data, we provide the first estimates of the prevalence parental absence via migration that are comparable across populations in contemporary Latin America. We show that between 7 and 21 percent of children live in transnational families where parents are absent because of migration. We compare our estimates to similar estimates of parental absence from other sources, and show that, in several populations, more children are experiencing parental absence due to migration than to union dissolution or parental mortality. Finally, we link our descriptive work to children's welfare by examining the characteristics of children's home environments when parents migrate. Children living in families with absent parents due to migration are less likely to coreside with extended family members, and to fare better in terms of household assets, relative to children living in other family forms. We conclude by highlighting the limitations of the data, and underscore the value of attempts to estimate the prevalence of parental absence via migration.
Although there is a vast literature describing different aspects of the migration of Transylvanian Hungarian youth to Hungary, only a few papers deal with their migration with the purpose to study, in the period after 1990. István Horváth analyzes this phenomenon from the perspectives of its dynamic in time, its structural context, and the changes of its general (social) and closer environment (the relationships between the educational system, the labor market, and the system of social stratification). The author is a sociologist teaching at the Hungarian Department of the Department of Sociology, University of Kolozsvár. He has specialized on ethnicity, bilingualism and migration studies
The author – Kálmán Gábor, sociologist, youth researcher from Hungary – interprets the situation of Hungarian youth abroad from the hypothesis that in the 1990’s, after the fall of communism their position shifted from the periphery to the center. This means that the Hungarian youth abroad, as well as in Hungary, is subject to many kinds of pressure: from competition in school to unemployment, premature independence, entering the market too early, and different stress-fighting techniques. For the Eastern European youth, their central position means better chances in a harshening competition, but first of all, the urge to meet the same, or almost the same challenges as Western-European youth.
This is a study of the formation and length of the youth period of the 15-29 aged Hungarian population of Hungary’s neighboring countries, as well as the age and mode of incurrence of this period’s most important life events. It is based on the Hungarian and majority sample of the research called Mozaik 2001, which can be taken as a sort of a radiogram of a society. The author, Valér Veres is a sociologist, and teaches at the University of Kolozsvár
This article surveys contemporary theories of international migration in order to illuminate their leading propositions, assumptions, and hypotheses. It hopes to pave the way for a systematic empirical evaluation of their guiding tenets. The authors divide the theories conceptually into those advanced to explain the initiation of international migration and those put forth to account for the persistence of migration across space and time. Because they are specified at such different levels of analysis, the theories are not inherently logically inconsistent. The task of selecting between theories and propositions thus becomes an empirical exercise, one that must occur before a truly integrated theoretical framework can be fully realized. -Authors
Researchers working in Mexican communities have observed both regularities and inconsistencies in the way that transnational migration develops over time. This article presents a theory that accounts for these uniformities and discrepancies and proposes a method to compare the process of migration across communities. It also argues that studies must report and control for the prevalence of migration within communities. Data from 19 Mexican communities show that predictable demographic, social, and economic changes accompany increases in migratory prevalence. Although international migration begins within a narrow range of each community's socioeconomic structure, over time it broadens to incorporate other social groups.
The study presents the defining characteristics of temporary emigration o fRomanians in the 2000s. The theoretical frame is built by reference to the concepts of life strategy, human, social, economic and
community capital and innovation diffusion. International migration strategies are more and more adopted in the context of poverty increase within the country, globalization and constitution of international migration
networks. Temporary emigration is hardly marked by positive selectivity , rural Vs urban differentiation and variability function of the migration waves. These waves follow the pattens of a social innovation
diffusion .Community social capital of ethnic or religious origin plays a very important ro le at the beginning of the process of emigration. Analysis is based on survey data at national level, community studies and multilevel approach.
Edited by two of the world's leading analysts of post communist politics, this book brings together distinguished specialists on Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia/Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania. The authors analyse the challenge of building democracy in the countries of the former Yugoslavia riven by conflict, and in neighboring states. They focus on oppositional activity, political cultures that often favour strong presidentialism, the role of nationalism, and basic socioeconomic trends. Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott provide theoretical and comparative chapters on post communist political development across the region. This book will provide students and scholars with detailed analysis by leading authorities, plus the latest research data on recent political and economic developments in each country.
This study of wage-labor migration and its relation to household composition and economics is based on a sample of 70 households in a central Mexican town. Specific types of migration are linked to job locations within Mexico or the United States and to the amount and reliability of remittances. The latter two factors are critical in determining the impact of labor migration on the household. New facets of the association of female household headship and out-migration are presented. A predictive model in the form of a flow diagram illustrates the interrelationships of variables.
International migration emerged as a global phenomenon at the end of the twentieth century. All developed nations have become de facto receivers of immigrants, mostly from the developing world. Begins by undertaking a comprehensive examination of current patterns of international movement to assess prospects for the immediate future. Contrary to widespread belief, international migration is not related to population growth in developing nations. Rather, a survey of flows into the US, Europe, Argentina, and the newly industrialized countries of Asia suggest that it is more strongly connected to structural transformations associated with incorporation into global markets and is heavily conditioned by historical relationships of exchange, trade, and colonialism. The migration policies of developing nations recognize this fact by seeking to encourage and organize the export of labour as a source of foreign exchange earnings. In contrast, the policies of developed nations refuse to accept the reality of immigration and seek to prevent the entry of foreigners and limit their access to jobs and social programs. Whereas the former policies are often quite successful, the latter usually are not, producing a large gap between policy desires and outcomes in the developed world. Immigration is simply the labour component of a global market economy, and policy makers would do well to learn lessons from the prior era of globalization that occurred from 1800 to 1929. Policies that emphasize managing international population flows rather than preventing them are more likely to be successful.
No society works exactly like its constitution, and no organization functions exactly according to its official administrative guidelines. In the life of all societies and all bureaucratic organizations — East and West — there exist a whole variety of “informal structures” by which people accomplish their delegated tasks or through which they achieve their own personal goals. In the West, we speak of such informal structures in terms of “networks” or “connections.” Those who “know somebody” can go around the bureaucratic queue or obtain free goods and services which others have to pay for. When the use of such connections becomes too blatant, we call it “nepotism” or “corruption.” When they take on an openly acknowledged market value we call it “bribery.”
Development and migration are related because the processes of capital substitution, enclosure, and market penetration destroy the foundations of the peasant economy and create a pool of displaced persons who seek better opportunities elsewhere. Given the cyclical nature of economic growth, the persistence of international wage differentials, and the decline of transport costs, some movement abroad is inevitable. The extent of emigration is determined by the degree of economic integration between countries, but once begun, international migration tends to feed on itself and grow rapidly. Historically, among European countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emigration was extensive and reliably linked to the onset of industrialization. As a contemporary example, Mexico conforms closely to expected patterns and its level of emigration is not exceptional by historical standards.
"Land doesn't expand and it doesn't contract; we'll find your piece of it."
(Judge in a court case over land)
"Hey! Since when did my garden shrink?" "It didn't shrink, it stretched."
(Two neighbors arguing over the boundary between their gardens)
"The day will come when a man will go out into his field and not know where it begins or ends."
(Biblical reference by villagers to the imminent end of the world)
In memory of loan Aluaş
In February 1991 the Romanian Parliament passed a law for the restoration of land to its former owners. Known as Law 18/1991, the Law on Agricultural Land Resources (Legea Fondului Funciar) liquidated collective farms and returned their lands to the households that had given them over at collectivization (1959-1962).' The former owners recover not merely usufruct, or use rights, but full rights of ownership.
This article is divided into three sections. The first provides a theoretical framework for our discussion of the failure of post-Soviet transformation in Belarus using theories of national identity and sultanism which are applied in the subsequent sections. The second section surveys national identity, the demographic situation and public opinion as bases for what we view as a developing Belarusian version of sultanism. The third section analyses the sources of authoritarian sultanism in Belarus and its negative impact upon democratic and market economic transformation.
The American Diabetes Association currently recommends that all youth with type 1 diabetes over the age of 7 years follow a plan of intensive management. The purpose of this study was to describe stressors and self-care challenges reported by adolescents with type 1 diabetes who were undergoing initiation of intensive management. Subjects described initiation of intensive management as complicating the dilemmas they faced. The importance of individualized and nonjudgmental care from parents and health care providers was stressed. This study supports development of health care relationships and environments that are teen focused not merely disease-centered and embrace exploring options with the teen that will enhance positive outcomes.
Since 1990, the temporary labour migration of ethnic Hungarians from the Transylvanian region of Romania has provided a context for the emergence of new and distinctly national modes of self-understanding. In this paper I develop a three-part analytical framework to examine the ways in which migration is conducive to the transformation and dissemination of changing national identities. First, I argue that host countries for all migrants (including those involved in other examples of ethnic affinity migration) are inevitably recognised as foreign and often alienating. Second, I examine the reasons migrants consistently understand and represent these new-found differences in explicitly national terms. Finally, I discuss the ways in which migration networks facilitate the standardisation and diffusion of transformed identities. Rather than signalling the demise of national forms of identification predicted by some observers of international migration, the Transylvanian Hungarian case reveals how temporary labour migration can be the conduit for the transformation and reinvigoration of national identities.
In this paper we explore what it means to be young and live in a border region, one which demarcates the European Union from its ascendant nations/states. By analysing interviews with members of the young generation, we will focus on the ways in which these young people deal with this particular geopolitical situation. In particular, we examine the young generation's narratives regarding their home community and the possibilities which are offered to them. We will illustrate four different constructions: being entrapped in non-stimulating homes, excursions from home, home as a place of retreat and security, the best of two homes.
L'auteur expose dans cet article ses theories concernant les migrations transnationales. Selon l'auteur, la sociologie des migrations integre le phenomene transfrontalier sans lui accorder assez d'importance. En prenant comme exemple la Pologne l'auteur s'appuie sur les conceptualisations d'A. Giddens et sur l'ouvrage de D. Massey World In Action pour examiner le processus structurel de la creation de liens micro/macro sociaux des migrants et de leurs comportements transnationaux
This article reviews conventional theories about different aspects of labor migration: its origins, stability over time, and patterns of migrant settlement. For each of these aspects, we provide alternative explanatory hypotheses derived from the notions of increasing articulation of the international system and the social embeddedness ofits various subprocesses, including labor flows. A typology of sources and outcomes of contemporary immigration is presented as an heuristic device to organize the diversity of such movements as described in the empirical literature.
Many field investigators have observed the evolution of a "culture of migration" in certain Mexican communities characterized by a high rate of out-migration to the U.S. Within such communities, international migration becomes so deeply rooted that the prospect of transnational movement becomes normative: young people "expect" to live and work in the U.S. at some point in their lives. Males, especially, come to see migration as a normal part of the life course, representing a marker of the transition to manhood, in addition to being a widely accepted vehicle for economic mobility. International migration is cultural in the sense that the aspiration to migrate is transmitted across generations and between people through social networks. In this article, we develop a formal theory of the culture of migration and test it using a special data set collected by the first author as well as data from the Mexican Migration Project. We show that children from families involved in U.S. migration are more likely to aspire to live and work in the U.S. and that these aspirations, in turn, influence their behavior, lowering the odds that they will continue in school, and raising the odds of their eventual outmigration to the U.S.
The importance of absolute income and relative deprivation incentives is examined for internal and international migration in developing country households. Empirical results, based on Mexican village data, support the hypothesis that households' relative deprivation in the village reference group is significant in explaining migration by household members to destinations where a reference group substitution is unlikely and the returns to migration are high. Independent of relative deprivation, village households wisely pair their members with the labor markets in which the returns to their human capital are likely to be greatest. The results suggest that a specific type of migration constitutes a response to a specific configuration of variables, and the role of relative deprivation appears to differ for internal and international migration. Taking relative deprivation into account when studying migration is shown to have important implications for development policy. For example, economic development that does not redress intra-village income inequalities may become associated with more migration. Copyright 1991 by Royal Economic Society.
Households, work and flexibility. Country contextual reports: Romania Research Report 2. Country Contextual Reports: Demographic Trends, Labour Market and Social PoliciesTheorizing migration in anthropology (eds) Migration Theory
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Mozaik 2001: A perifériáró l a centrumba. Té a hatá tú li magyar fiatalok helyzeté az e ´rtelmezésé
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Gá, K. (2004) 'Mozaik 2001: A perifériáró l a centrumba. Té a hatá tú li magyar fiatalok helyzeté az e ´rtelmezésé', Erde´lyi Tá, 2: 9Á23.
Getting Started: The Youth Labour Market Transnational Chinese: Fujianese Migrants in Europe
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The ''Dogeni'' from Teleorman at home and abroad: a study on circular migration to Spain', Sociologie Româ
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Serban, M. and Grigoras, V. (2000) 'The ''Dogeni'' from Teleorman at home and abroad: a study on circular migration to Spain', Sociologie Româ, 2: 92Á120.
International Migration
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Fogyasztó i szoká a magyarfalusi vendégmunká kö
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Patterns and socio-economic consequences of international labour migration on Catholic and Orthodox villages from Eastern Romania (Neamt County) A tarkasá dicse´rete. Az Erasmus Kolle´gium diá tanulmáMigration incentives, migration types: the role of relative deprivation
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Székelyfö*Csíkpá. A közsé migráció s potenciá Menni vagy maradni? Budapest: MTA Kisebbségkutató Inté
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The Ceausescu Cult. Propaganda and Power Policy in Communist Romania
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EU Enlargement to the East and Labour Migration to the West
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(eds) Encyclopedia of Sociology 1 (1Á5)Some elements of the hidden economy in Hungary today
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Székelyfö*Homoró dalmá e ´s Lövé. A ké falu vendégmunká-potenciá Menni vagy maradni? Budapest: MTA Kisebbségkutató Inté
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Locuirea temporara ı ˆn strainatate. Migratia economica a româ 1990Á2006
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Gazdálkodá e ´s vállalkozá az erdé falvakban', Erde´lyi Mú
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Wallace, C. (2003) Country Contextual Reports: Demographic Trends, Labour Market and Social Policies. Research Report #2. Vienna: HWF Research Consortium, online at http:// www.hwf.at/downloads/open_area/pdf_reports/pdf_report_2/09_romania_country_con-text.pdf, accessed 6 August 2007.
Istoria româ. De la origini pâ la zilele noastre
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Migration and the labour market (evidence, misinterpretations, lessons) Refugees and Migrants: Hungary at a Crossroads
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Az erdé magyar fiatalok Magyarorszá irányú tanulá migráció ja: 1990Á2000', Erde´lyi Tá
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