From 2007, when Romania joined the European Union, until 2017, 3.4 million Romanians had left the country, which accounts for almost 17% of its population. These official data place
\nRomania on 2nd position in a classification rating the growth rate
\nof a country’s Diaspora, after Syria, which tops the ranking, being a country that
\nhas been faced with a civil war for several years now. This is the situation at
\npresent, but the future does not seem to be different. Another survey confirms
\nwhat people have been discussing at informal level, namely that young people
\nthemselves intend to migrate. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Youth Mobility international
\nstudy has processed the data of a survey conducted among 30 thousand young people
\nfrom 9 EU countries: Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, Ireland, Slovakia, Latvia,
\nItaly, Spain and Romania. 2 thousand people from Romania participated in this
\nsurvey conducted in late 2015 and the early 2016. The conclusion, which is
\nstill valid today, is that almost half of Romania’s young people aged between 16
\nand 35 would like to emigrate. University professor Dumitru Sandu from the
\nFaculty of Sociology of the Bucharest University has also contributed to the
\nresearch:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
They don’t just wish to leave the
\ncountry, they have made concrete plans for leaving. Wishing to leave the
\ncountry is one thing, because wishes may be different in terms of intensity and
\ndegrees of structuring the future, and we are not working with instruments
\ninvestigating people’s wishes. We look deeper into an issue. Thus, 47% of young
\npeople in Romania in the 16 to 35 age bracket had clear intentions, even plans to
\nleave the country in the following 5 years at the time the survey was conducted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
This comes as no surprise for the
\npublic opinion in Romania. However, surprises emerge when we start making comparisons
\nwith other countries. For instance, in terms of reasons for leaving the
\ncountry, Romanians are quite similar with Italians. Professor Dumitru Sandu
\nexplains: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The list of reasons is long. Top of
\nthe list are always pay, jobs and wellbeing. And there are more reasons. A
\ncommon reason for both Romanians and Italians is corruption and poor working of
\npublic administration. At present, situations and motivations are different, so
\nit’s better to rely on what we know better. Let’s take the situation of
\nphysicians. Since their main reasons for leaving Romania are economic, one
\nwould expect that the pay rise they have received recently could be regarded as
\na first step in the process of preventing them from leaving. But this doesn’t work
\nlike this. Of course, salaries have only recently been raised, and partial data
\nin the research show something different: the gap between the private and public
\nsector has deepened, and private sector physicians want to have similar
\nsalaries with those in the state-run system. If they can’t have them in
\nRomania, they can always go abroad. In this equation we should also introduce
\nthe stabilisation factor, of stabilising qualified young people. Other factors
\nto be introduced should be the quality of the working environment and of professional
\nlife, and this is also valid for other domains of activity, besides medicine. Young
\npeople want good working conditions and professional promotion based on merit,
\nlike in other parts of Europe.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The discussions held by professor
\nDumitru Sandu with the 2 thousand young Romanians who participated in the Youth
\nMobility survey also tackled the idea of returning to Romania after working
\nabroad:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
If we think of the issue of youth
\nbrain drain only in economic terms, we’ll never fix this issue. For the survey
\nI talked to 2 thousand young people, some of whom had returned from abroad. I
\nasked them why they had left in the first place, when they first left the
\ncountry and how frequently they left. Furthermore, when you compare life experiences
\nthat lead to migration in the 9 countries, you can see that in Romania what
\nmatters is previous experience abroad. Ordinary Romanians, both young and old,
\nare influenced a lot in their intentions to leave the country by what they did before.
\nMigration is circular.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Referred to in expert studies as ‘Euro-commuting’,
\ncircular migration is a temporary, usually repetitive movement of migrant
\nworkers between home and host areas, for the purpose of employment. Commuting
\nis only possible based on binding labour contracts. Comparison with other
\ncountries can also shed light on other aspects of migration for employment
\npurposes: the possibility and the conditions for returning home. Here is
\nprofessor Dumitru Sandu again: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
As shown by other studies, a major
\ndifference between ordinary Romanians and for example Poles who choose to migrate,
\nis that Poles leave on the basis of contracts or collaboration agreements with
\nan institution, which are more favourable to circular migration. Romanians,
\nhowever, choose family connections when they go abroad. If we compare a regular
\nRomanian migrant with a Swede or German migrant, the latter return home because
\nthey have reached their goal. Romanians return home because they have to, they
\nreturn because they are sick or a relative is sick, because they get a divorce
\nor they come to visit the kids they left behind. Their return is dependent on
\ncertain factors, so they don’t return home frequently.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Institutionalising circular
\nmigration could be a solution for the return, at least temporary, of the young
\npeople who leave the country with the wish to return at some point in the
\nfuture, who don’t want to lose their roots completely. Here is professor
\nDumitru Sandu with more: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
They leave the country with the thought
\nof returning in certain conditions. They keep monitoring the situation in the
\ncountry and make a final decision to return based on this monitoring and
\ncomparison with the Western countries. Moreover, ordinary people adapt their behaviour
\nnot only according to objective indicators but also to subjective indicators,
\nsuch as confidence. They speak of confidence or trust in Parliament, government
\nand other public or private institutions. Another side of the issue is that
\nyoung Romanians, both those living in Romania and abroad, show a higher degree
\nof mistrust in public institutions, more precisely in Romania’s public
\nadministration.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Thus, the main reason for young
\npeople’s return to their home country, besides the reasons specific to
\nEuro-commuting, is actually related to the developments in the country and the
\nchanges to the existing situation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
3.4 million Romanians left the country between 2007 and 2017, according to official reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":143008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[29207,19347],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-143007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-migration","tag-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n