Central and Eastern Europeans Migrants’ Subjective Quality of Life. A Comparative Study.docx

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1、71Volume 1, number 2, 2007Journal of Identity and Migration StudiesCentral and Eastern Europeans Migrants5 Subjective Qualityof Life. A Comparative StudySergiu BalatescuAbstract: There is no general agreement among scholars on the consequences oflabor migration on the sending countries. Some argue t

2、hat the migration would increasethe quality of life of the families or communities involved, giving support for democracy andmarket reforms in these countries, while others share the view that the brain drain andfiscal losses would have long term effects on the sending countries development. Thispap

3、er takes another approach, focusing on the migrant persons subjective quality of life.Using data issued in the first two rounds of the European Social Survey (2002/2003,2004/2005), the Eastern European immigrants satisfaction with their lives as a whole andwith the social and political environment i

4、s measured. They report lower satisfaction withlife as a whole, but higher satisfaction with the societal conditions than the natives andother kind of immigrants. Explanation lies in the different sources of these evaluations:when evaluating their overall satisfaction, the immigrants rely on their e

5、xperiences in theirreceiving countries, while when evaluating the societal conditions they compare these tothose from the sending countries. The fact that they show higher levels of satisfaction withthe societal conditions than the other immigrants also supports this hypothesis, becausethe former ar

6、e more recent and less accommodated to the receiving society than the latter.Keywords: immigration in Europe, economic migration, citizenship, quality of life,subjective well-being, social attitudes, social comparisonIntroductionThe relationship between migration and development is a recent andpromi

7、sing study areas although there is no general agreement on the mainconclusions of the literature. Some scholars share the view that the migrationwould increase the quality of life of the families or the communities involved,reducing the extent, the depth and the severity of poverty4 and providing、Ni

8、nna Nyberg Sorensen, Nicholas Van Hear, and Poul Engberg Pedersen, The Migratiovelopmcnt Nexust, International Migration 40 no. 5 (2002).4 Richard H. Adams, Jr. and John M. Page, Do International Migration and RemittancesReduce Poverty in Developing Countries?/1 WorldDevelopment 33, no. 10 (2005).Se

9、rgiu BALTATESCUJIMS - Volume 1, number 2, 2007VO-opportunities for better education and healths. This, it is argued, would increasethe support for democracy and market economy in these countries. Others suggestthat we deal here only short-term effects. The brain drain, the fiscal losses, andthe lack

10、 of the internal pressure towards democratization and development? wouldhave long term negative effects on the sending countries quality of life.This paper approaches differently the debate, focusing on the quality of lifeof the migrants (which is an obvious effect of social development), measured o

11、nthe level of the individual. The perspective is not entirely news, but there are notmany studies in this research area. We would expect to find a lower quality of lifeof the immigrants from Eastern Europe compared with the natives. However, anygood comparative data, like the New Immigrant Survey in

12、 U.S.9, lacks on thecontinent. A new study would be better fitted for this job: the European SocialSurvey, a very robust and reliable comparative researcho. The first (2002/2003)and the second (2004-2005) waves included relatively high samples than othersimilar surveys (between 1.500 and 3.000 subje

13、cts for each nation) that allow amore reliable comparisons between the studied groups.The present paper is focused on the Central and Eastern Europeanimmigrants. I included under this category all those who came from the post-communist countries in Europe, including those from Southern Europe (likeA

14、lbania) or from European Post-Soviet countries. I used the subjective quality of lifeapproach that takes into account the effects of different factors that worsen thequality of the migrating individuals. Using data from the first two rounds of theEuropean Social Survey (2002/2003, 2004/2005), the Ea

15、stern European immigrantsJ. Page and S. Plaza, Migration, Remittances, and Development: A Review ofGlobalEvidence/ Plenary Session of the African Economic Research Consortium, May 29 (2005).De31oprtiriooT%砌石Red tib静dlfen-nBarttances as aDevelopmentBahk StOlahd N. H. Stern, A Strategy for Development (World Bank Publications, 2002).,quoted by Eerman (2005).o,Gordon F. De Jong, Aphichat Chamratrithirong, and Tran Quynh Giang,WH5e=B廿除，Siisfaction Consequences of Migration/1 International Migration Review 36,thmBaseline Round of the Nis 2003no. 3 (2002), A. C. Michalos, ,lMigrationSocialtnMghsR由