Análisis asistido por computadora

Comparing Estonia and Slovakia

In Estonia, the share of returnees was high and rising between 2008 and 2013 and, by the end of the period, the rate of return exceeded the rate of out-migration. In Slovakia, the proportion of returnees to migrants was rather modest, not exceeding 20% in any of the observed years, hence out-migration was never balanced by a sizeable return.

Regarding education, we did not observe a great differences between young returnees and non-migrants or migrants in either of the countries. However, the mismatch between the level of formal education gained in the home country and employment while abroad was an important predictor of return in Estonia. This suggests that the decision to return may have been driven by more optimistic prospects of employment in the home country. On the contrary, the qualification mismatch abroad did not have any influence on Slovak returnees.

In Slovakia, those who were self-employed while working abroad were less likely to become returnees, and those who were out of the labour market a year prior to the interview, especially students and unemployed, were more likely to return.

The effect of macro-economic variables is also different across the two countries.

Whereas in Estonia the return of young migrants is associated with decreasing unemployment rates, in Slovakia the opposite seems true.

Do returnees have higher rates of unemployment?

We also observed that returnees had a higher probability of being unemployed following return than the general population; in other words, those without recent migration experience. This is, however, likely to be short-term unemployment because we captured the returnees in a transition period.

Importantly, using complementary analyses based on administrative data and interviews, we found that returnees can afford a longer jobsearch period thanks to accumulated savings from abroad and possibly also the opportunity to transfer unemployment benefits from the host country (Hazans 2008; Zaiceva and Zimmermann 2016).

Overall, this indicates a better match to skills and experience upon return.

From a cross-country comparative perspective, the unemployment rates of returnees were much higher in Slovakia than in Estonia, which we attribute to a worse performing labour market in Slovakia.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we observed different stories of return migration in Slovakia and Estonia. We not only observed different shares of returnees, but also different underlying reasons for return amongst young migrants, in particular.

Youth employment

Policy-wise this implies that there is no single recommendation concerning return migration to CEE countries. Country-specific contexts are important for gaining a thorough understanding of the processes and their individual and macro-economic implications.

References

Hazans, Mihails. 2008. Post-Enlargement Return Migrants’ Earnings Premium: Evidence from Latvia.

University of Latvia and BICEPS, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1269728.

Masso, Jaan, Lucia Mýtna Kureková, Maryna Tverdostup and Zuzana Žilinčíková. 2016. Return Migration Patterns of Young Return Migrants after the Crises in the CEE Countries: Estonia and Slovakia. STYLE Working Paper WP6.1 Return migration patterns of young return migrants after the crisis in the CEE countries: Estonia and Slovakia

Masso, Jaan, Lucia Mýtna Kureková, Maryna Tverdostup and Zuzana Žilinčíková. Forthcoming.

‘What are the Employment Prospects for Young Estonian and Slovak Return Migrants?’ In Youth Labor in Transition, edited by Jacqueline O’Reilly, Janine Leschke, Renate Ortlieb, Martin Seeleib-Kaiser and Paola Villa. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mýtna Kureková, Lucia, and Zuzana Žilinčíková. 2016. What is the Value of Foreign Work Experience?

IZA Journal of European Labor Studies 5, no. 1 (2016): 20.

Zaiceva, Anzelika, and Klaus F. Zimmermann. 2016. ‘Returning Home at Times of Trouble? Return Migration of EU Enlargement Migrants During the Crisis’. In Labor Migration, EU Enlargement, and the Great Recession, edited by Martin Kahanec and Klaus F. Zimmermann, 397-418. Berlin:

Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-45320-9 Migration and mobility

The set of contributions in this section of the volume, together with the entire research of the STYLE project around migration and mobility, converge on a set of policy themes that we identify below in greater detail.

Anti-discriminatory practices and integration tools for intra-EU and third-country mobility

Intra-EU and third-country migrants have poorer labour market outcomes compared to nationals. However, these differences varied for youth migrants in terms of the quality of employment and wages, which were found to be stratified depending on the migrants’ region of origin. Youth migrants from CEE (EU8), Bulgaria and Romania (EU2) proved to be doing worst; youth migrants from EU-South had a middle position;

and youth from the remaining EU countries were doing better than their native peers.

This might reflect the fact that policies continue to be designed in such a way that migrant workers have suboptimal social conditions and limited civil rights (transitional arrangements, temporary working schemes for third-country nationals).

We find that labour market intermediaries are not necessarily neutral and often serve the interests of employers first, rather than those of migrants. While they help facilitate access to foreign labour markets, they can in some cases also contribute to leaving young migrants in jobs with poor working conditions: low pay for long working hours and short-term contracts, rather than counterbalancing these phenomena.

Among policy tools to address the existing labour market segmentation of CEE migrants, in particular, we suggest:

• strengthening the role of public labour market intermediaries

• increasing monitoring and regulation of private intermediaries to secure good working conditions for young migrants

• improving career and training opportunities to help young migrants to develop their skills at work and to participate in training programmes that support them in gaining access to jobs that fit their skills and interests

Lucia Mýtna Kureková and Renate Ortlieb

Emerging policy lessons