Dynamics of Migration in Romania: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives

1. Erasmus Intensive Programme Summer School Arab Spring and Transition: a New Perspective in Euro Med Partnership Universita degli Studi di Catania - June 2013 Characteristics of migration and imigration fromand toRomania after December 1989 Assist. prof. Andrei Cotruș Dimitrie Cantemir University of Tîrgu Mureș - Romania

2. Migration has become a global phenomenon that affects most countries of the world. After the fall of communist regime, migration in Romania became a pressing concern, up to 15 % of the total population leaving the country then. According to Eurostat, 96.929 persons left Romania immediately after the revolution, due to the opening borders, reaching 170.000 people that left our country in the next three years. During this period, 75% of permanent legal imigrants were ethnic Germans, Hungarians and Jewish. Later, as a consequence of the restrictions on visas and work permits, migration rate in Romania has decreased, however temporary migration rate has seen an unprecedented explosion, making it a pressing concern, with profound social, economic and psychological consequences.

4. Analyzing the dynamics of this phenomenon over the past 18 years of emigration în Romania: • first period, between 1990 and 1995, characterized by the emigration rate of 7 persons per 1000 inhabitants; the destination countries were Israel, Turkey, Italy, Hungary and Germany. • a second period between 1996 and 2001, with an emigration rate of 7 persons per 1000 inhabitants; destination countries were Spain, US and Canada. • a third period, from 2001 until now; due to the Schengen visas and the integration of Romania in European Union the emigration rate increased to 28 persons per 1000 inhabitants.

6. Temporary labor migration is a prominent phenomenon for the post- communist period in Romania. An Worldfacts survey emphasized that 4 to 7.3 percent of the Romanian active population worked abroad at least once in 1990. A survey conducted in 2006 by the Open Society Foundation for the period between1990-2007, show that more than one third of Romanian households had at least one immigrant who worked abroad in that period.

7. Total of Romanian emigrants by country of destination

8. Romanian migration began to develop after 1990 to Western Europe, and greatly intensified especially after 1997, the year that occurred restructuring and closures of large industrial companies. Romanian migrants were able to take advantage of Western European lack of regulation in the context of migration in countries like Italy and Spain have access to the opportunities offered by Western labor markets. By 2002, migration has grown selectively by using networks of kinship and friendship.

9. Another type of change refers to how migration affects ethnic and religious minorities. In the early '90s, members of ethnic and religious minorities were the most mobile among Romanian citizens. Migration of Germans and Hungarians was the first major migration immediately after the Revolution of 1989. Also, members of Catholic religious communities, Adventist and Pentecostal migrated before Orthodox.

10. Using Western religious networks, some of these emigrants were able to adapt more quickly at the society in their new countries, and success much faster than other Romanian migrants. Such ethnic and religious differences appear in the communities of origin. The Pentecostals support an intense transnational relations between Romania and Italy, and are able to maintain a high social control and a positive attitude towards their migration perspective. In contrast, Orthodox migrants are more individualistic and religious affiliation has an important role in the trans-nationemigration.

11. Migration is a reality that will continue to exist as long as there are disparities in terms ofto the welfare and development of the various regions of the world. This can be ait is an important opportunity for human and economic exchange, and also because it allowspeople to realize their aspirations.Migration was transformed over time in a regional process determined by economic factors,social, political or natural, to a global phenomenon currently being measured at about 3% ofpopulation. No country is outside international migration flows, and these are quality. The place of origin or destination or transit times, in some cases, all at once.

12. 8739 people have emigrated permanently in 2008, fromRomania, of which3069 persons were male and 5670 werefemale people, compared with 96,929persons in 1990, of which 46,335 male and50,594 female. Next figure shows thepermanentmigration flow from Romaniaduring the period of 1990-2008overall As I emphasized at the begining of this course, the absolute number ofpermanent emigrants declined in theanalyzed period, dueto the explosion of temporary labor migration.

13. Permanent Romanian emigrants, in total between 1999-2008 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990

14. Causes of emigration There are many causes whichgenerate the migration of high qualifiedpeople. For a correct analysis I divided thecauses in objective and subjective ones. There are a lot of subjective causes identifiedby specialists being decisive for this complex phenomenon. The unfavourable economical circumstances, the social and politicalsituation, the violation of human rights andof academicals freedom can produce psychological pressures on the person, generating the people’s wished to find aplace which can fulfill their dreams.

15. Another explanation is that within theNew World Orders the societies belong toone of these two categories: meritocracy andoligarchy. Meritocracy draw the elites, whilethe oligarchy generates floods of humancapital towards meritocracy societies. Theidea of elites rule in the new globalisedsociety is much conveyed. In a meritocracysociety a person must correspond to thecriteria of the society in order to join theelites because the rules for joining areestablished.

16. He must have a highintelligence, education, imagination and anadaptation capacity to the new technologiesand discoveries that succeed very fast. Aperson is accepted in the elites only he fulfilsa series of inherent parameters. The rejectionof such a person even if he can fulfill a seriesof inherent parameters can be an opportunityto provoke conflicts and frustrations in theabreast of people, and also provoke the wishto emigrate to societies which offer themfavorable conditionsto develop and toprofessional fulfillment, which will recognize their own potential.

17. Unlike the meritocracy society, the oligarchy society means a seriesof parameters, called by Sam Vakintranscendental, should be fulfilled so that aperson can belong to the elites. A transcendental parameters doesn’t depend on the person. It is a happening that slips theperson’s will. Such a transcendentalparameter is gender, race, religion,genealogical tree, etc. In order to take partinto the elites, a person must belong to thewhite race, to be a male, and to belong to certain class.

18. The oligarchy societies always generate floods of human capital to themeritocracy societies. Persons with highpotential who have all the necessaryconditions in order to join the elites arerejected because of unfair reasons, becausethey don’t satisfy the transcendentalparameters generating the tendency ofleaving the state. In fact, the real cause ofthis brain drain phenomenon is precisely thisconflict between meritocracy and oligarchysocieties, conflict which generates a flood ofhuman capital from oligarchy societies to meritocracy societies. Besides this, the financial issue is very often wet, the bigdifference between the earned incomes of ahigh qualified person from a developedcountry and theearned income of a highqualified person in an underdeveloped country.

19. Objective causes The labor market of high qualifiedstaff has been globalized and knew anunprecedented increase so that many factorsappeared, factors which determine on the onehand the need of drawing of human capitalfrom outside, and on the other hand the wishto emigrate towards societies which offer thefulfillment of people’s aspirations. We canclassified this complex objective causes in endogenous and exogenous causes.

20. Endogenous of causes totalize theinternal, economical, social and politicalcircumstance within a state. The example ofthe ex USSR is very suggestive. The openingpolitics of the president Gorbaciov led intime to the loss of the political control to thecollapse of the economy, to the disappearingin time of the restrictions from thecommunist period concerning the floods ofhuman capital, the labor migration.

21. The increase of inflation, the stresseddevaluation, the dramatically decrease offunds for the scientifically research led to thewill of emigration among the high qualifiedpersons. To all these we can add thecontraction determined by the collapse of theeconomy due to the political changes, theinput of foreign capital and the output of autochthonous capital. The institutions sustained by the state were the most affected,the state wasn’t aware of the new issues sothere is no efficient program which stops theflood of high qualified human capital. But the most endogenous objective cause is thelow living standard in the birth countries ofwho choose to emigrate, the security andcomfort, as well as the lack of materialresources for the development of a researchactivity at the international standards.

22. The exogenous objective causes arethe engine which acts and determines thehigh qualified labor demand, the brain drainphenomenon. The globalization affected themost regions of the world, the bordersdimmed; the competition has an importantrole on the human capital market which ismore and more global. The young researchers from Central and Eastern Europe are drawnby the “American dream” or the mirage ofdeveloped West European countries, leavingtheir birth country in order to search a betterliving standard and a professional fulfillment.

23. As well as US and West European countriesor developed Asian countries lead a draftpolitics of the high qualified staff fromCentral and Eastern Europe, benefiting of theresults of foreigner researches of whoseprofessional forming they didn’t contributeto, being exempted from educational costsgenerated by schooling of a potential researcher.

24. Immigrants The total number of permanentimmigrants who chose Romania was of 10,030 persons in 2008, a 8428 persons increase compared with 1991. 6041 arewomen and 3989 men. In figure 2 ispresented the evolution of permanentimmigrants in Romania during the period of1991-2008. Analyzing the data can beobserved a sharp increase of the people whochoose Romania as adoptive country,especially in the last three years, after ourcountry became a member of EU.

25. The evolution of permanent Immigrantsbeetwen 1991-2008 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

26. Immigrants by origin country, in2006

27. There is a positive direct correlationbetween education and economical growth,which is indicated as a major source of long-termgrowth. Consequently, skilled and highskilled migration is a negative externality forthe origin country of these people.There is a position, become classicalin economy, to treat this phenomenon as anegative externality imposed to thepopulation remaining in the country.

28. This theory has been re-evaluated and the newapproaches show that in a small economy,developing, open, characterized by skillsheterogeneity, two effects can be noticed anddifferentiated: an ex-ante brain effect,deriving from the fact that the existence of migration possibilities encourages investments in education because of thesuperior income brought by the investment ineducation valorized in exterior and an expositeffect, induced by this tendency of thehighly qualified people to emigrate.

29. It seems that the income of the Germany-EasternEurope axe has increased on account of thehuman capital mobility. Some analysts offerthis motivation in order to sustain theliberalization of the human capital fluxes, forthe “laissez-faire” applied to it. Thedeveloped countries offer the necessaryframe for the human potential development and the poor countries offer intelligence

30. Solutions to counteract the effects of emigration Most economists investigating this phenomenon considered that highly qualified people’s migration represented a negativeexternality for their natal country. The newapproaches of this phenomenon offer as apossible solution regarding the highlyqualified people left abroad as a potentialgain and not a loss. If the natal country couldfind a way to valorize this human resource, ifit could take advantage on the experiencethey gained in the receiving country, the problem would be solved.

31. Two ways ofcounteracting this phenomenon have beensuggested: either those who left are offeredenough good reasons to come back, or byconstituting Diaspora and using them todevelop the mother society. If this flux werea bilateral one, a two-ways street, the highlyqualified people’s natal country might play abeneficiary part. Still the return of thesehighly qualified people is a complicatedprocess that depends on a series ofconjectural factors very hard to control, suchas the economical ones, but also the social,political ones etc. Laying only on affectiveconnections in a world of pragmatism might be a lost game.

32. Laying only on affective connections in a world of pragmatism mightbe a lost game. As for the Diasporasconstitution and using for the mother societybenefit, it seems to be a more veridical andspread option. The labor marketglobalization and attenuation of thecommunicational borders makes their usepossible without physically returning in theorigin country. It’s even more advantageousfor the country in question, benefiting oftheir individual researches and of the ones ofthe cognitive socio-groups they have adhered to, with minimum investments.

33. This alternative, at least from the economists’point of view would seem much moreadvantageous. However the first one is farfrom being obsolete and the second one is farfrom proving its supremacy. It’s difficult tosay which way should be chosen. The brain drain phenomenon is insufficiently investigated and it’s difficult to keep itseffects under control. The free circulation ofthe human capital can lead to the increase ofdisparities between the world states and toglobal tensions amplification, but it can alsohave an important contribution to attenuate disparities in the income distribution on world-wide level.

34. This depends on the way governments will act, on theirinternalization politics, on the way they willknow how to find and use means leading tobenefit and not to loss on account of thisphenomenon. That is the reason why adetailed investigation of this phenomenon is necessary.

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