Central and Eastern European Migration Review

The global Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the vulnerable situation of people on the move and other migrant groups at a time when the usual spatial routes were disrupted and mobility was restricted for much of the world’s population. However, while mobility was halted for some groups of migrants (e.g., in reception centres), migrant workers faced somewhat contradictory treatment by different governments, reflecting the ‘need’ for migrant workers in certain sectors of the economy. The article provides an analysis of such paradoxes in European migration and mobility policies. It focuses on the situation of people on the move on the so-called ‘Balkan route’ and two categories of temporary workers in the European Union: posted workers and agricultural workers. Its main argument is that, despite hierarchies of different mobility practices, both groups remained largely marginalised and such inequalities made some populations structurally vulnerable in different ways.

The Western Balkan countries have been faced with a rising outward mobility of health professionals, driven by the increasing demand for this category of worker, especially in European countries. Labour-market imbalances are pushing many health professionals to leave the Western Balkan region. As a consequence, shortages of health professionals are looming and access to health services in the region is put under strain. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the recent pattern of mobility of health professionals from Western Balkan (WB) countries. A gravity model is implemented to analyse the push-and-pull factors of mobility during 2000–2019 and towards European countries. The analysis finds that income differentials between WB and European countries are strong pull factors. Additionally, policy changes in the destination countries shape the mobility patterns and several European countries, especially Germany, have benefited from the mobility of health professionals from WB countries.

In this study, we empirically analyse intentions to emigrate from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), focusing on individual, household, regional and socio-economic determinants, including specific influences relevant to the post-conflict nature of this society. We rely on a series of annual country-representative survey data collected over the period 2006–2010 and the latest repeated survey from 2019. This gives us the possibility to see whether there are changes in observed determinants with a decade’s difference, all investigated through non-linear econometric models. Moreover, we supplement quantitative research with qualitative in-depth interviews to enrich our results with deeper insights collected from both emigrants and potential emigrants in BiH. Our findings indicate that higher intentions to emigrate are linked to typical individual and household conditions: young, educated and low-income respondents all report high intentions to do so. However, the socio-economic environment characterised by economic – and, even more, by political – instability increases these intentions considerably. Our comparative analysis reports that the socio-economic environment has taken primacy over individual characteristics as drivers of emigrations which dominated a decade ago. Conventional thinking that economic drivers of emigration intentions dominate nowadays have not been confirmed. Policymakers should focus on improving primarily political stability as a measure that will decrease emigration intentions in this post-conflict society.

Since 1991, Albania has become a fertile terrain for the study of migration and its relationship to development. One aspect of the country’s intense and diverse experience of emigration which has received less attention is the movement of its students into higher education abroad. To what extent does this student emigration constitute a potential brain drain? We answer this question via a mixed-method research endeavour consisting of an online survey (N=651) of Albanian students enrolled in foreign universities and follow-up in-depth interviews (N=21) with a sample of the survey respondents. The survey and interviews were carried out in 2019–2020. The survey collected data on students’ social and academic background, reasons for going abroad to study, life in the host country, attitudes towards returning to Albania and perceived barriers to return. Half of the respondents do not intend to return immediately after graduating. The remainder have a more open or uncertain mindset, including 30 per cent who say they will return only after a period spent working or doing further studies abroad. Those who intend to return, either sooner or later, do so out of a combination of family ties, nostalgia and wanting to ‘give something back’ to their home country. However, the barriers to return are perceived as formidable: low pay, lack of good jobs, corruption and a general feeling that ‘there is no future’ in Albania. The scale of loss of young brains is thus potentially considerable and a major policy concern for the future of the country.

This article addresses the question of what influences the opportunities for social mobility in the context of return migration to Albania from a meso-level perspective. It applies a network-theory-based analysis to 104 qualitative interviews with a diverse sample of returned migrants, conducted in Albania between 2019 and 2022. The interviews are clustered into three categories according to the stated economic need for migration. The analysis shows that the geographical dispersion, the support capacities and the influence of these networks on migration decision-making differ significantly between the three categories. Despite some dynamics, individual network embeddedness reflects the overall socio-economic and ethno-political stratifications of the origin society and distinctively shapes migrants’ modalities and means of migration, the opportunities for resource accumulation abroad and their ability to re-establish themselves after return. Thus, social networks mainly contribute to continuity rather than change in terms of social stratification, even over the course of migration(s) and return(s). Yet, these effects are mediating, not determining, outcomes and are context-dependent. Lastly, network effects differ not only between but also within the categories, depending, for example, on the gender or age of the migrant.