Abstract
Eastern enlargements of the European Union to eight Central and Eastern European countries (EU8) together with Cyprus and Malta in 2004 and Romania and Bulgaria (EU2) in 2007 were unprecedented in many aspects. Leaving aside Cyprus and Malta, the large population size of the acceding block and substantial income differentials between the old and new EU members generated fears of a huge influx of Central and Eastern European migrants who would settle permanently in the old EU15 countries, leading to benefits shopping and negative impacts on the receiving countries’ labor markets. However, a significant proportion of these migrants considered and indeed stayed abroad temporarily (Pollard, N., Latorre, M., & Sriskandarajah, D. (2008). Floodgates or Turnstiles? Post-EU enlargement migration flows to (and from) the UK. London: Institute for Public Policy Research; European Commission. (2008). The impact of free movement of workers in the context of EU enlargement, Report on the first phase (1 January 2007 – 31 December 2008) of the Transitional Arrangements set out in the 2005 Accession Treaty and as requested according to the Transitional Arrangements set out in the 2003 Accession Treaty. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Brussels, 18 Nov 2008; Eurofound. (2012). Labour mobility within the EU: The impact of return migration. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions). Overall, immigration from the EU8 and EU2 has increased the EU15 population by approximately 1 % after the enlargements, with around 1.8 % and 4.1 % of the respective regions’ population having moved into the EU15 (Holland, D., Fic, T., Rincon-Aznar, A., et al. (2011). Labour mobility within the EU – The impact of enlargement and the functioning of the transitional arrangements. Final Report. Study for the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. European Commission, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, London; Brücker, H., Damelang, A. (2009). Labour mobility within the EU in the context of enlargement and the functioning of the transitional arrangements. Analysis of the scale, direction and structure of labour mobility, Deliverable 2. Nürnberg: IAB.
This paper is a revised version of Zaiceva A, Zimmermann KF (2012) Returning Home at Times of Trouble? Return Migration of EU Enlargement Migrants during the Crisis. IZA Discussion Paper No 7111.
We are grateful to the participants of the 5th IZA/CEUR Workshop on “EU Enlargement and the Labor Markets: Migration, Crisis and Adjustment in an Enlarged E(M)U II”, the anonymous referee as well as the editors of this volume for providing a number of suggestions that helped to improve the chapter significantly. I/We remain responsible for any mistakes still present.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See Constant et al. (2013) for an analysis of costs and benefits of circular migration.
- 3.
Transitional arrangements that limited workers’ mobility were initially introduced for a period of 2 + 3 + 2 years for workers from the EU8 countries. In 2004, only the UK, Ireland and Sweden opened up their labour markets completely. In 2011, Germany and Austria removed the remaining restrictions for workers from the EU8 countries. Similar transitional arrangements were also imposed for workers from Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, while Spain unprecedentedly re-introduced restrictions in July 2011 “due to serious disturbances on its labour market”. All the remaining restrictions for the EU2 workers had to be removed in January 2014.
- 4.
An example from the Eurofound (2012) is quite instructive. The authors show that even within one country estimates may diverge substantially, as is the case for Poland where the estimated return migration ranges from 39,000 (only 2009, ONS, APS) or 49,000 (2004–2010, CSO, population registers) to 500,000 (2004–2010, Fuller et al.); and from 1.05 million (1989–2008, CSO, LFS) to 2.9 million (1998–2007, PORC survey).
- 5.
Note that in Estonia and Latvia we also kept the so-called non-citizens in the sample, who constitute an important share of the population in these countries and are mostly Russian-speaking ancestors of previous immigrants, including those who hold citizenship of another country (for example, Russia).
- 6.
Note, however, that this information is available for 1 year before the survey and an individual may still become unemployed or inactive in the months preceding the survey.
- 7.
Here we include only new EU members that joined in 2004, due to current transitional arrangements for Bulgaria and Romania. Moreover, due to the differences in transitional arrangements adopted with respect to the 2004 accession countries, we differentiate between those countries that opened up their labour markets immediately after the 2004 enlargement (the UK, Ireland and Sweden) and the rest of the old EU15. Cyprus and Malta are excluded since no transitional arrangements were imposed for them.
- 8.
We have also experimented with including the number of children in the model. However, it was not robust to different specifications and was not statistically significant in the final model with weights.
- 9.
We have also disaggregated the “inactive” category into a “students” variable (“students, pupils, further training, unpaid work experience”) and “other inactive”. The estimated marginal effects were not significant for students, while the “other inactive” variable became significant at the 1 % level.
- 10.
In addition, we have estimated the regressions for the probability to be a returnee relative to current work migrants using the EU LFS data for the EU10. With the exception of male and middle education category, the results were qualitatively identical (males and those with middle educational degree were less likely to be a returnee relative to current work migrants).
- 11.
In the earlier version of the paper, we have estimated the regressions without weights and the results were qualitatively the same, with the major difference being the effect of age, which was negative and significant for the EU15.
- 12.
The exact name of this category in the EU LFS is “Pupil, student, further training, unpaid work experience”. Our tabulations from the EU LFS 2009 and 2010 data for all returnees and current work migrants with higher education suggest that the proportion of highly educated in the age group 25–29 years is larger for returnees than for migrants, and that individuals who were students 1 year before the survey constitute an important share of returnees.
- 13.
For example, Constant and Zimmermann (2012) find very high probability of a repeated move back to Germany for return migrants from Germany, and that this probability is guided mainly by remittances and family considerations.
- 14.
The exact wording is as follows: “You have worked (including volunteering and traineeships) for at least three consecutive months in another country than ours”; “You have attended school or studied for at least half an academic year in another country than ours”; “You have lived for reasons other than study or work for at least three consecutive months in another country than ours”.
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Zaiceva, A., Zimmermann, K.F. (2016). Returning Home at Times of Trouble? Return Migration of EU Enlargement Migrants During the Crisis. In: Kahanec, M., Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Labor Migration, EU Enlargement, and the Great Recession. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45320-9_16
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