Ready to Go? EU Enlargement and Migration Potential: Lessons from the Czech Republic in the Context of the Irish Migration Experience

Wadim Strielkowski and Cathal O'Donoghue

No 74, Working Papers IES from Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies

Abstract: EU enlargement is hardly can be seen as the major push factor for migration. There are mainly economic factors that influence the migration decisions. Besides it seems that there is a migration potential, unique for every country, that pre-determines the migration or labor mobility. In our paper we (i) analyze the impact of internal economic factors, such as GDP growth, unemployment and wages on the emigration rate and (ii) compare the migration potential for the country distinguished by the high ratio of outward migrations (represented by Ireland) with those of the post-communist economy as well as the “new” EU Member (represented by the Czech Republic). We come to conclusions that economic factors have the decisive role on pre-determining the migrations and that migration potential and the propensity to migrate as a reaction to worsening of the economic conditions at home are highly correlated. These can explain why there was no mass emigration from the EU “new” Member States to the “old” Member States after the recent Enlargement, as far as it comes to migration potential needed for inducing such labour moves. The potential emigrants from new EU Members States are simply not ready to go to wealthier Member States in search of better wage and employment opportunities.

Keywords: migration; labour mobility; EU enlargement; Czech Republic; Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F02 F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2005, Revised 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Ready to Go? EU Enlargement and Migration Potential: Lessons for the Czech Republic in the Context of Irish Migration Experience (2006)
Working Paper: Ready to go? EU Enlargement and migration potential: lessons for the Czech Republic in the context of Irish migration experience (2005)
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