Fundatia pentru o Societate Deschisa (Open Society Foundation) LIVING ABROAD ON A TEMPORARY BASIS THE ECONOMIC MIGRATION OF ROMANIANS:

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1 Fundatia pentru o Societate Deschisa (Open Society Foundation) LIVING ABROAD ON A TEMPORARY BASIS THE ECONOMIC MIGRATION OF ROMANIANS: Bucharest, November 2006

2 The research team involved in the preparation of the project Living abroad on a temporary basis (LTS - LATB): Dumitru Sandu coordinator, professor, Univ. of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology and Social Care (UB-SSC) Ana Bleahu doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Vlad Grigoraş doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Alexandra Mihai doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Cosmin Radu doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Cerasela Radu doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Monica Şerban doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Alexandru Toth doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Georgiana Toth doctoral candidate at UB-SAS Simina Guga sociologist Monica Jeler sociologist, Rome City Council Georgiana Păun social worker, PACT Mihaela Ştefănescu sociologist, Program Coordinator at FSD (OSF), LTS (TLA) Program Manager at FSD (OSF) Delia Bobîrsc sociologist at MMT Data gathering through national surveys (1,400 people) and micro-regional surveys (800 migrant households), during August 2006 Gallup Organisation. The authors of this research report are the only ones responsible for the analysis and interpretation of the data. Their opinions are not necessarily those of the funding entity. The authors would like to thank Mr. Ovidiu Voicu, Program Manager at FSD (OSF), for the idea of this research and for his efforts put into starting this project.

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4 Table of contents Introduction... 1 Questions... 1 Methodology... 2 Their paths and our kaleidoscope... 4 Structure... 5 The Team... 6 Appendixes... 6 Exploring Europe through work migrations: How many? When? Where from /where to? Who, until now? Who, in the future? How do you get to work abroad? Conclusions Appendix: Technical details of data analysis Tables and charts Consequences and plans Incomes and investments from migration Entrepreneurial orientation Mentalities Family relations Community aspects Medium-term plans of the Romanians (two to three years) Regional-community dimensions Italy: Between informal and illegal, tolerated, but not legalized! Case study: A Romanian in Italy Roman path of the romanies: from Craiova to Villa Troili. 93 Case Study: Myth of foreign countries in Năneşti-Vrancea International Migration Routes to Spain 117 Romanians Make European Money from Visas for the Serbs Appendix: Opinions and Behaviours of Population by Types of Habitation Experience Abroad The article is based on the interviews taken by the team made up of Ana Bleahu, Delia Bobîrsc, Georgiana Păun, Mihaela Ştefănescu between August in Nanesti Village, county of Vrancea. Respondents are persons working in Italy and coming home on leave. 2 Tables built by Alexandru Toth. Details on the types of temporary habitation experiences abroad in the chapter Mentalities by Dumitru Sandu in this volume.

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6 Introduction Dumitru Sandu Questions How many, who, how, where, what and when? These are the six major families of interrogations in connection with the temporary work migration abroad. In this case, it is the migration of Romanians. And not in any times, but after In other words, we are interested in: their number how many leave and how many come back; their social profile who are those who leave or come back; the way of occurrence the departure, the employment abroad and the integration into that environment; the movement space where from and where to; the motives and consequences why they leave and with what consequences for them, for the communities, the regions or the country of origin and of destination; the time the variations on migration stages for all the aspects mentioned above. In a simplifying version, we discuss about the causes and consequences of the work migration abroad, after In order to approach the complexity of the phenomenon, we will have to resort, however, to metaphors and multiple approaches. It seems to me that the explorer metaphor, as the person who tries to enter an unknown world, is of great use. For most Romanians, finding a job abroad, after 1989, has meant an exploration in the geographical meaning, but especially in the social meaning of the term. It has involved strategies, risks, accumulations and consumptions of resources in order penetrate a different world, which was most often far and unknown. The process has been a search: through exploration of different national spaces from one time to another, by themselves or especially with the help of the close ones relatives, friends, acquaintances, in legal, illegal or semi-legal ways, with interruptions and returns, to identify certain work niches and economic and social success in the world abroad. The failures and successes have a different meaning from one migrant to another, from one stage to another, according to the own scale of the person who took on the search. The migratory exploration does not have a different structure than that of the classic explorer. Both imply motivation, strong will to arrive in a world in which you have never been before and about which there is little information around you. For the migrant, at one extreme, there is the situation in which there is only its desire to arrive to the Promised Land. At the other extreme there is the situation in which, apart from desire, there are also material, social and knowledge resources to reach the Promised Land. In this case, there is, in essence, much more material gain, in a much shorter period of time than at home. The contrast is not between poverty and wealth, but between what I have here and what I might have if, for a while, I earned much more. The reasons and consequences for what was and for what will be are the main interests at the level of the current Romanian society. These are also the major perspectives of the approach described in this paper. In order to clear up why the migrant leaves and with what consequences, it is necessary to draw maps and to re-create accounts of the migrants and their migrations. We are considering both maps in the standard meaning of the word, namely that of spatial representation of the phenomenon, but also mental maps that the population actually uses in its migration. The accounts will be both individual, on cases, and collective, on communities or groups. The correct identification of the consequences and the estimation of the future characteristics of 1

7 the phenomenon involve a detailed study of the trends already recorded, of the analysis of temporary living abroad, on stages. This is what I shall undertake next. Research, in general, considers work migration from the point of view of temporary living abroad. From this point of view, we are not only interested in the economic aspect of migration, but also in its social aspect, through its causes and consequences. These are much better captured when we discuss living that also involves the occupation and consumption, finding a house, the social interactions, the cultural frameworks of reference in different localities. Methodology Temporary living abroad (LTS - TLA) is a complex research (Diagram 1) in which the data about international migration has been collected: inside the country and abroad (Italy, Spain, Serbia), by national survey, by micro-regional research (Focsani-Vrancea, Alexandria-Teleorman, Banat Romania - Serbia), by qualitative research at the level of six communities in the country (Nanesti in Vrancea, Nenciulesti in Teleorman, Eselnita, Turnu-Severin, Baile Herculane and Orsova in Banat) and in four communities abroad (in Rome, Italy; in Madrid, Spain; and in Dusanovac and Negotin, Serbia). Through the national survey, data was gathered from 1,400 people of adult age (see appendix 1). Each person interviewed has given information about himself/herself and his/her household. Consequently, in the analysis, we have been able to generate four data folders on: the people interviewed directly, based on a probabilistic, two stage selection, with stratification in the first stage 1,400 people (TLA-basic sample group); a total of 4,791 people on whom we requested data in the 1,400 households by means of the household form (TLA, sample people within the households); departures for work abroad from the 1,400 households during departures (TLA, sample departures for work abroad); people with intention to leave abroad from the 1,400 households 280 people (TLA, sample potential migrants). Apart from the national sample of 1,400 people, there were also used two samples of 400 households each, selected from two micro-regions, Focsani in Vrancea and Alexandria in Teleorman (see appendix 2). A micro-region is made up of the town-center of attraction and its surrounding communes for which the minimum rural-urban distance is up to that town (for details, see appendix 2). The Focsani micro-region was chosen for detailing the migration towards Italy. The migration towards Spain was analyzed at community-regional level based on the case of the Alexandria micro-region. Within each micro-region, we selected a village for qualitative research Nenciulesti in Teleorman and Necsesti in Vrancea. The two micro-regions were chosen so as to be able to study in depth the original social status for two of the major destinations of the Romanian emigration, Italy and Spain. The county of Vrancea, with a migration predominantly oriented towards Italy, was, at the time of the census of 2002, the county with the highest temporary emigration level in the whole country. The county of Teleorman, having Spain as favourite destination, has a low level of temporary emigration and, consequently, a population with a less structured migration experience. Given the available research resources, we chose to cut out micro-regions from those counties. 2

8 research level national/transnational micro-regional community at the migration origin community at the migration destination type of research survey of a probabilistic sample of 1,400 people, representative at national level; documentary analysis micro-regional survey or qualitative research qualitative research qualitative research interviews and interviews and observation observation migration towards Italy Focsani-Vrancea micro-region, semi-random sample of 400 Nanesti village, Nanesti migrant households commune Romanian communities in Rome type of migration and place of research migration towards Spain Alexandria-Teleorman microregion, semi-random sample of Nenciulesti village, Nenciulesti commune 400 migrant households Romanian communities in Madrid cross-border migration to Serbia Banat, Romania Bor, Serbia micro-region, qualitative research interviews and systematic observation Diagram 1. Research levels and components on temporary living abroad FSD (OSF), 2006 Ieselnita village and the towns of Orsova, Turnu- Severin and Baile Herculane Dusanovac village- Serbia town of Negotin-Serbia 3

9 The option is based on the hypothesis that temporary emigration is sustained not only by community networks, but also by regional ones, not only by the problems of the village, but also by those of the rural-urban micro-region to which the village belongs. Alexandria and Focsani are the capital towns of the two counties selected. They form micro-regions together with their surrounding communes. Within the micro-regions, the selection of the pilot villages Nenciulesti in Teleorman and Nanesti in Vrancea was performed based on predominantly pragmatic criteria. In the case of Nenciulesti, for example, there were previous field experiences at the level of that village. Moreover, one of the researchers involved in this project, Monica Şerban, comes from a family that is originally from that village. Finding a sufficiently large number of migrant households so that we might have the chance to speak to recent migrants, possibly returned home temporarily, was another objective that we considered in both micro-regions. The surveys of the micro-region and the in-depth interviews were carried out in August, the time when migrants came back home on holidays. Thus, we were also able to obtain data from migrants returned home on a temporary basis. Data gathering in Rome and in Madrid was carried out through snowball selection, following the paths opened by various migrant networks with which the researchers came into or were already in contact. A third micro-region was chosen so that we might also be able to study the small, crossborder migration. As the team had two specialists who had studied the migrant circulation between Romania and Serbia (Cosmin Radu and Cerasela Radu), we decided to resume the research on both banks of the Danube, in the Banat area, in localities such as Orsova, Esalnita, Turnu-Severin, Baile Herculane and, on the Serb bank, in Dusanovac and Negotin. In this micro-region we only worked qualitatively, without the costly component of the surveys. The research carried out on multiple levels and branches is a consequence of the way in which the field of temporary migration from Romania to foreign countries is structured. Although, after 2001, the departures focus more and more towards Italy and Spain, the flows are still unstable. The actors are numerous individuals, families, communities, regional networks, governments, NGOs etc. The rate of illegal migration is, probably, significant. At the destination, individuals are still employed illegally to a large extent. Their paths and our kaleidoscope The same individual gives a different account of his/her own migration experience. At the destination, in connection with the foreigners and with other migrants, there is a certain account, and upon his/her return to the country there is another account. In the first case, there is emphasis on his/her problems and on the tension of the interaction with the new living environment. In the country, the emphasis is more often on success, on self-fulfilment through migration, on status strengthening through discourse. The information obtained is so different, the sides of the phenomenon are so mobile that you can no longer understand it unless you go both to Focsani and to Rome, or both to Alexandria and to Madrid. It is still a mosaicmigration, a jumble migration that can only be read on multiple levels, both at the place of origin and at the destination, both with survey data and with interview data, both with community accounts and with individual accounts. The national and micro-regional surveys are prepared according to the rule of statistical representativeness, for the society in general, for the population in the micro-regions considered. The life accounts, the interview sequences speak in logical terms of type of situation and migration path. We reproduce them for illustrative purposes. The account of Marius, for example (told by Mihaela), who arrived in Rome coming from Moldova, is significant for the descending-ascending path, from deacon to dweller under a bridge in Rome; and this would later lead to living in an apartment, even though it is not inhabited by a single family, in a residential suburb of Rome, and especially to plans of having the home 4

10 both in Rome and in Romania, because one can never know Is this a typical path? Probably, yes. It certainly isn t the only one. There are also the strictly ascending ones ( bad in the country, but well at the destination ), the strictly descending ones ( acceptable in the country bad at the destination ) or the linear ones ( quite the same here and there ). Usually, researching the Romanian emigration to foreign countries is still in a inevitablyexploratory stage. The research of the phenomenon at the destination, carried out by a team that wants to establish a connection between the situation here and the situation there, the migrants and the non-migrants, those who leave at present and those who left in the past, is a unique project. It has its advantages and its risks. It is impossible to say, for example, what are the percentages for the different types of migration paths. It is difficult to say how typical are, for the Romanies (gypsies) in Romania, the facts, events and situations described by Monica Jeler, about the Roman path of the Romanies in Craiova, arrived on the Villa Troili Street; or those of the Romanian community, La Fripta, described by Ana in her account of the Romanians transformations in Rome; or those of Petre from Esalnita, day labourer in Dusanovac, Serbia, frequently mentioned by Cerasela and Cosmin. With regard to the consequences of the temporary living abroad, it seems that there is a prevailing opinion that the phenomenon is good, reduces poverty, leads to having a house, possibly two, one here and another one in Rome/Madrid, to a car, to a better school for the children, and possibly to a business. It even leads to favourably changing the mentalities with greater focus on work, but also acknowledging the risk, with new professional skills etc. However, there also occur, more and more distinctly, family and community dysfunctions: more frequent divorces, lonely children with all the risks involved by loneliness, increased crime rate, traffic in human beings, drogues, aged villages, factories and regions where there is no longer qualified personnel to be found etc. All this world of good and bad, good for some and bad for others, good now and bad later or vice versa, we attempt to examine under the microscope of the social, sociological and anthropological observation; a microscope that must have multiple mirrors, to look at the same minute fact of life in a kaleidoscopic manner. The data collected is much richer than that analysed in this paper. It is highly unlikely that it remain unused, given the challenge presented by the issue and the interest of the team who collected it. Structure This paper is divided into four sections. The first section Exploring Europe through work migrations is intended to be an overall descriptive approach how many, who, where and when they left and what they worked/work. It is a spatial perspective, at the place of origin and at the destination, and a temporal one, from 1990 up to present. The reconstructions are mostly carried out in terms of departures, not of those who left. We use national and regional survey data Vrancea, Teleorman, Italy. The survey numbers, as interpretation basis, are supplemented with the official ones regarding the residence permits. The second part deals with the consequences and the prospects associated with the migration. This part is not comprehensive, but it still includes a great range incomes and investments from migration, enterprise, mentalities, family relations, community and life plans. The approaches are predominantly quantitative, with national or micro-regional survey data. In the third part, the research focuses on community-regional spaces Vrancea and Rome, Teleorman and Spain, Eselnita-Orsova-Negotin-Dusanovac. The case studies, especially with regard to Italy and Serbia, are ample and elaborate. The dry description in the first part is enhanced with very significant life accounts. We pass from migration to migrants, not as identical entities, but as human beings, with prospects, resources, sufferings, plans, relations etc. 5

11 In the final appendix, there are described essential parts of the questionnaire, filled in with data, with the response frequencies. The tables are prepared so as to highlight the part of the living abroad experience in setting apart behaviours and opinions. The Team For the field research at the level of the community/micro-region, in general, we fully resorted to the continuity strategy, using experts who had already gathered qualitative information about a certain place. Ana Bleahu had already been to Italy for social research purposes and particularly in Rome. Monica Şerban had already dealt with a previous stage, in another project, of research on Romanian migrants in Madrid. Alexandra Mihai, although she did not have research experience in Madrid, she already had first hand experience of this country. Simina Guga, although she was not part of the team that left for Madrid, she had also previously done field research experience on the migration of Romanians to Spain. The Toths, Ana Bleahu and Georgiana Păun had experience in Vrancea, from other research. Monica Jeler, another former student, joined the project during its Roman period. Ana Bleahu and Mihaela Stefanescu contacted her in Italy. Thus, we added a migrant-sociologist-cultural mediator at Rome City Hall to the project team. The migration at the Serbian border had been researched ever since 2002 by Cosmin Radu, after he had previously dealt with the path of Adventist people of Crangeni, a village from Teleorman, to Spain. Cerasela Radu, together with Cosmin, started to explore the migration towards Serbia since 2004, experience preceded by the research of the migration of the Romanies from Mures and Harghita towards Hungary. With regard to the field research, Vlad Grigoras was new at Nenciuleşti. Vlad was not for the first time in Teleorman. Together with Monica Serban, he had taken part in the research at Dobrotesti, a part of the project that we had prepared with the help of the students at that time - today s doctoral candidates, in the micro-region Rosiori de Vede, at Crangeni and at Dobrotesti. Delia Bobirsc sociologist at Metro Media Transilvania, arrived in time to help us first came to Vrancea for this project. Also new in knowing Vrancea was Mihaela Stefanescu. Appendixes Representativeness of the national sample The sample of 1,400 people used for data gathering at national level was designed based on a probabilistic, two stage pattern, with stratification in the first stage. The unit of selection in the first stage was the voting station, and in the second stage, the person to interview. For the stratification, we used a classification pattern, intersecting the cultural area with the type of locality, rural-urban, and the low, average or high level of the temporary emigration rate from the locality to foreign countries, in 2002 (18 areas*6 types of localities = 108 strata). The data was gathered from 109 localities ( 63 communes and 46 towns), located in 31 counties. The final selection was done, for three quarters of the total number of people interviewed (74%), based on the voting lists. The others were selected through the random path method (16%) or from other lists (10%). The representativeness of the sample on criteria such as the degree of urbanization, the location within historical regions, the cultural areas, the intensity of the temporary emigration rate from the locality to foreign countries, is provided by the way in which the sample was designed and selected. The comparison between the structure of the data at the level of the sample and at the level of the population (Table A1) indicates a good representativeness on gender, age and education criteria. Observe that the deviations of the sample distributions compared to those of the population are small, even when there is reporting on subpopulations simultaneously defined by two criteria. 6

12 Table A1 Characteristics of the sample with regard to temporary living abroad (TLA) and to the population from which the sample was extracted Population* Sample TLA % of women in the population aged % of women in the population aged 18+ from urban % of women in the population aged 18+ from rural % Magyars 6.6*** 4.8 % of people aged 18 to 29 in population aged % of people aged 30 to 59 in population aged % of people aged 60+ in population aged % high school graduates in pop. aged % high school graduates in rural pop. aged % university graduates in pop. aged individuals per household 2.92** 3.46 individuals per household, in family households 3.39** 3.69 % Magyars 6.6*** 4.8 *Data at the census of 2002, the census of Population and Housing (CPH), the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). **The family households are made up of at least two related individuals. *** in population total, regardless of age, in 2002 and, at sample level, in the population aged 18+. A under-representation of the old population may be connected to the selectivity of the temporary migration, to the departure of young people for work or school, in the country or abroad. The most pronounced deficit is recorded in connection with the percentage of households made up of a single individual - 8% in the sample, compared to 19% in the population (Table A1). Implicitly, the average size of a household is considerably larger in the sample compared to the household (3.46 compared to 2.92 individuals per household). The deficit is normal in national surveys for several reasons: some of the households made up of a single individual are outside housing, in homes for single people, which are not included in the selection; the individuals living in households made up of a single individual are harder to find at home they are gone to work, if they are active, or to their children/relatives, if they are old 1 ; the selection from voting lists favours the selection of individuals from family households. Table A2 The distribution of the households in the sample, according to the number of individuals, compared to the distribution in the population number of individuals in Percentage of households in the household population, 2002* sample** *CPH ** The estimate for the sample was done by using the percentage variable, which enables the reading of the data for each individual should they be collected at the level of the household 1 65% of the total number of households made up of a single individual was represented, at the time of the census of 2002, by retired people. 7

13 (households/people in the household at the level of the locality from which the individual was selected, according to the data of the CPH). Designing samples on micro-regions Key concepts 1. The target population the households with TLA experience from the core of the microregion, at the level of the localities that, in 2002, were at least in the incipient phase of the experience of temporary migration abroad 4. A household is considered to have temporary migration abroad experience if at least one of its members present or not at home at the time of the survey has lived for at least one month abroad, after Micro-region the reference town, with over 30 thousand inhabitants, together with the communes which central villages have the maximum proximity to respective town. At this level of delimitation, only the towns with over 30 thousand inhabitants are considered, with the population estimate for The core of the micro-region the central town plus all the villages in the region, for which the distance up to the nearest town, regardless of the latter s size, approximately equals or is shorter than the distance used to select the locality in the micro-region For example, for the commune of Cervenia in Teleorman, Alexandria is the nearest town with over 30 thousand inhabitants, located at a distance of 32 km. However, the nearest small town, with approximately 12 thousand inhabitants, is Videle. Consequently, we will consider the village of Cervenia as part of the peripheral area of the Alexandria micro-region. 3. Type of sampling pattern theoretical at the level of the locality, random and snowball inside the locality. The stratification of the villages within the micro-region is achieved based on the cultural type of village and of community experience with regard to TLA. 4. For the cultural classification of the villages, we used three categories traditional villages, cultural transition villages and modern villages. These types resulted from regrouping the six categories of villages initially described in a previous paper Modern villages are those modern by education or by immigration The traditional villages include the poor ones by education and by remoteness The transition villages regroup what was initially called villages of religious diversity and villages of ethnic diversity. The type of ethnic-religious diversity exists especially in the provinces across the mountains. In the Old Kingdom, this occurs more like an intermediate category between the traditional villages and the modern villages. The education stock, for example, is minimum in the traditional 4 TLA is measured by the prevalence rate of temporary emigration abroad, calculated as the sum of the people temporarily gone abroad for more than six months (the census of population and housing of March 2002) and the people returned from abroad (community census on migration, December 2001, IOM and the Ministry of Public Information and the Ministry of the Interior). Through the recodification of the prevalence rates, four categories of villages were obtained: o With no TLA experience - 20%, o In the incipient phase of TLA experience - 27%, o In the intermediate phase of experience - 26%, o In the advanced phase of experience, with a high percentage of people who worked or lived abroad or who were gone abroad at the time of the recording - 17%. 5 Dumitru Sandu, Dezvoltare comunitară. Cercetare, practică, ideologie (Community Development. Research, Practice, Ideology). Iaşi: POLIROM, 2005). 8

14 villages, maximum in the modern ones and of intermediate value in the cultural transition 6 villages The use of the cultural typology of the villages as stratification factor is supported by the fact that the temporary living abroad experience is, as identified by certain recent surveys, strongly dependent on the category of village: 9% of the adults from the traditional villages have worked or travelled abroad; the corresponding percentages for the modern and cultural transition villages are 13% and, respectively 21% The bi-dimensional stratification pattern of the villages has nine possible categories: Community experience of temporary living abroad TLA 1. incipient 11 traditional incipient TLA 2. intermediate 12 traditional intermediate TLA 3. advanced 13 traditional advanced TLA village cultural type 8 1. traditional 2. transition 3. modern 21 transition incipient TLA 22 transition intermediate TLA 23 transition advanced TLA 31 modern incipient TLA 32 modern intermediate TLA 32 modern advanced TLA Sampling for the Alexandria micro-region, county of Teleorman 6. In accordance with the previously described procedure, it resulted that the Alexandria micro-region is made up of 114 villages, of which 58 define the core of that area. 7. The villages from the core of the micro-region are stratified (Table A3) according to their cultural type traditional, ethnic/religious diversity or modern and to the temporary migration abroad experience between December 2001 and March 2002 (recodification of the prevalence rate into four categories, using data for all the villages in Romania). 8. We shall consider two villages from each category where there are more than two cases (excepting the villages with no migration experience). The selection of the village within the stratum is performed randomly, with the exception of the pilot village, Nenciuleşti, in the case of the Alexandria micro-region. According to the available resources and the level of interest, in the pilot village, there will be created a subsample of 40 households, and for the rest of the villages we shall work with subsamples of 30 migrant households. 6 In the villages of Vrancea, for example, the percentage of the population aged over 10 who finished the primary school, at the most, was, in 2002, 48%, 45% and 35% for the traditional villages, the transition villages, respectively the modern villages. In the villages of Teleorman, the corresponding series of percentages was 59%, 54% and 42%. The three categories of villages are also hierarchically organized, on country total, from maximum to minimum, for the overall fertility rate (demographic traditionalism indicator), the distance to the nearest town or the percentage of the population who lives in peripheral villages. The connection with the extralocal world is minimum in the traditional villages, average in the transition ones and maximum in the modern ones. The percentage of commuters in 100 employees, for example, was, in 2002, 45% in the traditional villages, 50% in the transition villages and 57% in the modern villages. The average number of employees in 1,000 inhabitants was, in 2002, 104 for the traditional villages, 170 for the cultural transition ones and 221 for the modern ones (averages on village category, without weighting). 7 According to the data of the Rural Eurobarometer, FSD (OSF) Gallup, The terms traditional and modern designating the villages must be taken in their meaning relative to country and time. Thus, a village defined as modern is not modern in an absolute manner, or by comparison with a village in Western Europe, but in the context of Romania of the years

15 Table A 1. The distribution of the villages from the core of the Alexandria-Teleorman microregion, according to the cultural type and the migration abroad experience Temporary migration village cultural type abroad phase traditional transition modern Total* Incipient phase Intermediate phase Advanced phase No circulatory migration Total * one of the villages from the core could not be classified due to lack of data. The result of these operations is provided in the list of villages included in the sample. The result of the operations is provided in Table A4. Table A4 Subsamples within the Alexandria micro-region type of village, cultural dimension and TLA experience commune town/village subsample town of Alexandria traditional, incipient TLA NECŞEŞTI NECŞEŞTI 30 VIIŞOARA VIIŞOARA transition, incipient TLA CĂLINEŞTI CĂLINEŞTI 30 PIATRA PIATRA transition, intermediate TLA MAVRODIN NENCIULEŞTI 40 POROSCHIA POROSCHIA transition, advanced TLA ŢIGĂNEŞTI ŢIGĂNEŞTI 30 FURCULEŞTI FURCULEŞTI modern, incipient TLA BĂBĂIŢA CLĂNIŢA 30 DRĂGĂNEŞTI- VLASCA DRĂGĂNEŞTI- VLASCA The selected villages have great differences between the characteristic profiles on cultural category and migration experience (Table A5). Table A5 The profile of the villages included in the sample type of village distance village prevalence Village villagetown population 2002 development index, 2002 rate 2002 average age 2002 transition, Nenciuleşti intermediate TLA Poroschia cultural Călineşti transition, Piatra incipient TLA cultural Ţigăneşti transition, Furculeşti advanced TLA traditional with Necşeşti incipient TLA Viişoara modern, incipient Clăniţa TLA Drăgăneşti- Vlaşca

16 Total At the level of each locality, the first step is the selection of individuals from the voting lists, according to the requirements in Table A If at the address in the list there is no migrant household, then the operator identifies a neighbouring migrant household where he/she will carry out their survey (the snowball method). We will replace a household where there are former or current migrants, but where nobody was found at home after 2 visits The preferred order for the interview within the migrant household is: 1. the migrant returned temporarily from abroad, present at home, 2. the individual who worked abroad and returned for quite some time now, 3. the individual who was abroad for other reasons than work, 4. somebody else from the household It will be filled in the questionnaire the method used to identify the interviewee (list or snowball ). 11. If the village does not have the necessary number of migrant household addresses, then this will be supplemented with addresses from other villages in the micro-region that belong to the same type of village. 12. If the randomly created lists on voting stations do not provide the requested volume sample, the snowball method will be used. Sampling for the Focşani- Vrancea micro-region 13. The sampling procedure to follow for the Focşani micro-region is the same as in the case of Alexandria. 14. In Vrancea there are 324 villages, of which 228 can be considered as gravitating around the town of Focşani. The core of this micro-region is made up of the town of Focşani and the 74 villages that are exclusively attracted 9 by this town. According to the cultural type and the temporary migration abroad experience, the villages from the core of the Focşani micro-region are distributed according to the model in Table A7. Table A6 The distribution of the villages from the core of the Focşani-Vrancea micro-region, according to the cultural type and the migration abroad experience, village cultural type Community experience of cultural temporary emigration abroad traditional transition modern Total* Incipient phase Intermediate phase Advanced phase No circulatory migration 4 4 Total * for 4 villages there was no typological data available For every category that has more than two cases, we randomly selected two villages (Table A9). The exception is Năneşi village, from the commune with the same name 10, chosen as pilot village by the regional team, due to the comparative research opportunities with the temporary migrants community in Italy. 9 Meaning that Focşani is the biggest and nearest town from the respective villages. 10 Do not mistake it for Năneşti village, from the commune of Tănăsoaia, also located in the county of Vrancea. 11

17 Table A7 Subsamples within the Focşani micro-region type of village, cultural dimension and TLA experience commune town/village subsample Town of Focşani traditional, incipient TLA TĂNĂSOAIA CĂLIMĂNEASA 30 POIANA CRISTEI PETREANU traditional, intermediate TLA GAROAFA STRĂJESCU 30 POIANA CRISTEI POIANA CRISTEI Traditional, advanced TLA VÂNĂTORI RĂDULEŞTI 30 NĂNEŞTI NĂNEŞTI Transition, advanced TLA SURAIA SURAIA 30 GURA CALIŢEI GURA CALIŢEI modern, advanced TLA GOLEŞTI GOLEŞTI 30 CÂMPINEANCA PIETROASA The 400 addresses are chosen starting with the list in table A7 and in compliance with the procedures described for the Alexandria micro-region. In the actual collection of data, it was required to replace some villages, due to the insufficient number of migrant households: Necşesti village, from the commune of Necşeşti-Teleorman, replaced with Lăceni village, from the same commune; Călimăneasa village, from the commune of Tănăsoaia-Vrancea, replaced with Dealul Cucului village from Poiana Cristii; Petreanu village, from the Focşani micro-region, replaced with Martineşti village (commune of Tătărani). All the three villages that needed to be replaced Necşesti, Călimăneasa and Petreanu are traditional villages with incipient migration experience. The small number of migrants in those villages confirms the analysis that led to the classification of the villages according to the migration experience. 12

18 Exploring Europe through work migrations: Dumitru Sandu This is a chapter about the structure, dynamics and action of the temporary migration from Romania to foreign countries, after The structure is given by the answers to the questions who, where from and where to. The dynamics (but also the intensity) results from the confrontation with the questions how many, when, who in the future. The structure and dynamics focus on the number, on grouping events of the same type, on how many, where from, where to and when the temporary migration departures occurred. The action is seen as a migration act, but also as a reaction to this act. We shall discuss here about how do you get to work abroad, what you work, if you work. The migration ideology ( it is good or it is bad ) and the mentality changes bring us back to the subjectivity of the migrants to what they think and to what people think about them. This is just an introduction to the subject because the action aspects will be resumed throughout the paper, by reference to plans, consequences, networks etc. The structure and dynamics part resumes with completely different data what we have previously done starting from the community census on migration of The basis for reconstructing the recent history of the temporary migration abroad is no longer a census, but a set of three surveys, one at national level, of 1,400 people, and two surveys of 400 subjects from the rural-urban areas Alexandria-Teleorman and Focşani-Vrancea (for details, see the methodology briefly described in the introduction and the appendixes to the introduction). The subchapter on mentalities develops the approach that I started to develop by the foreign countries in urban mentalities 12. On the whole, it is an exploratory analysis focused on the description of the phenomena that make up or are associated to the temporary living abroad of Romanians, after How many? The type of data gathered through survey does not allow for a valid estimate of the number of people who left the country in search of work, at the time of the interview. The calculations can only be done at the level of the households made up of at least two individuals. If the household is made up of one individual, and he/she is out of the country, inevitably that case could not be included in the survey sample 13. The people who actually left come from households made up of one individual or bigger, with legal and illegal path (inevitably underreported in the survey). This is the reason why the interpretation will not emphasize how many they are, But how many have been gone from the existing households in the country. One third of the population s households are made up of at least one individual who was or is gone abroad, after In other words, approximately two million and a half of the country s households 14 have had the direct experience of foreign countries, by work or by travel. 11 Dumitru Sandu, Emerging Transnational Migration from Romanian Villages. Current Sociology, 53 (4): , Dumitru Sandu (coord.), Viaţa socială în România urbană (Social Life in Urban Romania), Iaşi : POLIROM, At the time of the survey, 10% of the households made up of at least two people had at least one migrant gone to work abroad. As the total number of family households (made up of two or more related individuals) is approximately 6 million (5,807,035 at the census of 2002 ) in Romania, it results that the minimum number of family households that currently have migrants gone to work abroad is at least 580 thousand. The average number of individuals gone to work per household with migrants abroad is From these numbers, it results that the number of people gone abroad would be 580,000*1.34=777,200. It is obviously a underdimensioning of the phenomenon, when the numbers reported at the emigration destination are much greater. 14 The reporting number is that of the total number of households of the population related to the census of population and housing of 2002, namely 7,320,202 households. 13

19 The households that have sent the most migrants abroad, mostly for work, are the big ones, made up of more than three individuals. The percentage of the people still alive, of adult age, who worked abroad in the past 17 years, was, at the time of the survey, at least 10%. At least indicates a minimum level of the estimate. It is likely that the real percentage of people who worked abroad is higher. 15 The choice to work abroad has had a considerable variation on population categories (Table 4): it is the young people, rather than the adults or the older people, who have gone to work; the number of men was greater than the number of women in the work emigration; for the group of men aged 18 to 59, the most frequent departures have been from the rural area. for women, the migration residential pattern is more different: the temporary emigration abroad is stronger at young women aged 18 to 29 from the rural area than in the case of the young women from the same age group, from the urban area; on the other hand, the temporary emigration is stronger at women aged 30 to 59 from the urban area compared to those from the rural one. In conclusion, those who leave to work abroad are mostly men, compared to women, young people, compared to adults and older people, young women from the rural area compared to those from the urban area, and mature women from the urban area compared to those from the rural area. When? The departure to work abroad was something new, an innovation, in the context of Romania after December Therefore, it followed the path of any social innovation, with a take-off period, followed by a maximum of social infectiousness. A first stage of the temporary work emigration abroad was that between 1990 and The annual emigration rates during this period of time did not exceed 5. This was the period of a first exploration of Europe by the Romanians in search of work, of a better living. The second stage of the exploration of Europe by the Romanians, after 1989, is between 1996 and The temporary emigration rate reaches values of 6-7 during this period of time. Following the access granted within the Schengen area, in January 2002, the process intensifies. Working abroad becomes a mass phenomenon, with a temporary emigration rate between 10 and 28 (Figure 1). The three stages reconstructed through survey data are also found, with slightly different limits, in the history of the Romanian migration to Italy, the country with the greatest attraction capacity for Romanians at present (Figure 2). According to the number of Romanians with a residence permit in Italy, the stages are , , Between , the annual average increase of people from Romania who obtain a residence permit in Italy is of 15 thousand people. In 2004, the number of Romanian residents in Italy doubles compared to the previous year, reaching approximately 300 thousand people in Initially, in the first stage, men were those who overwhelmingly left (88%). Later on (Figure 6), the process tends towards balancing the ratio of men to women, therefore, after 2001, the percentage of men s departures compared to that of women s departures represents 55% and, respectively 45%. The three above-mentioned stages are also easily found in the history of the recent migration from the two micro-regions subject to the research (Figure 11): the highest percentage of 15 The method through which we gathered the data, however, does not enable a more accurate estimate. Why? For several reasons: the people from the households made up of one individual, gone to work abroad, could not be included in the sample; due to the illegal migration, it is possible to underreport the departures abroad; the selection procedure, from the voting lists, favours the representation of the family households in the sample. 14

20 departures to work abroad, from the Focşani area and also from the Alexandria area, is recorded between 2002 and In accordance with the expectations that we had by designing the micro-regional samples, the temporary work emigration abroad started much earlier in Vrancea than in Teleorman. The intensity of the departures was higher in the towns than in the villages, during the initial period. Where from /where to? The dominant migration direction has changed with time. In the beginning of the 90 s, Israel and Turkey were the main centres of attraction for work. Italy, Germany and Hungary were the secondary destinations. Almost one fifth of the work departures total, between 1990 and 1995 was towards Israel (Places of origin and destinations Table 1). Later on, in the stage, Italy became the leader in attracting Romanians who wanted to work abroad. Israel fell in second place in the order of preference during that period. In the third stage, which has begun in 2002, the hierarchy has changed again. The maximum attraction is towards Italy and Spain. The departures (not the people who left) for Italy, during this period, are as high as 50%. The departures for Spain are at 25%. The paths of the Romanians in search of work abroad (particularly in Europe) tend to concentrate on a small number of countries, not in a linear way, but following a stage of extension of the search: in the first stage, 1990 to 1995, there were five destinations with a share exceeding 7% of the departures total - Israel, Turkey, Italy, Hungary and Germany; in the second stage, 1996 to 2002, Canada and Spain were added to the five countries from the first stage. The exploration was expanding towards the western limit of the European continent and towards America. in the third stage, which has begun in 2002, there is a massive concentration of the temporary work emigrations. After having tested the life and work conditions at multiple destinations, the Romanians decide, in particular, on two Latin-language countries, Italy and Spain. How much this decision has been influenced by the type of labour force demand, the ease to pass from Romanian to the language of the country of destination, and how much by the legislation and tolerance of the place of arrival, it remains to be determined. The changes occurred between these stages were not only with regard to the migration field. The volume of departures also changed. In the pre-schengen period, the intensity of the phenomenon doubled compared to the stage, and in the period after 2001, compared to the previous one, the intensity of the phenomenon of work migration abroad has tripled (Places of origin and destinations Table 1). The departures to work abroad are strongly regionalized (Figure 3). In the pre-schengen period, , the temporary emigrations abroad had relatively equal intensities, from the three major provinces of Romania (from Moldova, Muntenia and Transilvania). Later on, at the same time with the liberalization of access to the Schengen area, after 2001, there has been a strong regional variation in the temporary emigration. Moldova becomes by far the biggest exporter of workers abroad, followed by Muntenia and Transilvania, with similar intensity parameters of temporary emigration. The West and South-West areas of the country, represented by Crişana-Maramureş, Banat and Oltenia, are in third place with regard to the intensity of the temporary emigration abroad. Dobrogea and Bucharest have, regardless of the stage, the lowest temporary emigration abroad. The regionalization of the temporary emigration is not only indicated by the variations in the intensity of the phenomenon, but also by the clear structuring of a system of flows, which have specific places of origin and destinations. In the period (Table 3): with regard to the temporary emigration, Moldova focused, in particular, on Italy and Israel; Dobrogea had a partially similar orientation to that of Moldova, with strong emigration towards Italy but also, specifically, towards Germany; Transilvania was overwhelmingly marked by the migration path towards Hungary; 15

21 The people from Muntenia chose especially Turkey; Oltenia was, surprisingly, dominated by the flow towards Canada; For the people from Bucharest, Greece seems to have been the most attractive destination. After 2001, the degree of regionalization of the temporary emigration considerably decreases (Table 3). For seven of the eight historical regions of the country, Italy becomes the main destination. The exception is Muntenia, with a still predominant orientation towards Spain. Israel practically disappears as specific destination for the emigrants from Moldova and from Crişana-Maramureş, as it had been in the previous stage. Some specific secondary flows also remain after This is the case of the orientation of the people in Transilvania towards Hungary, and of the people of Dobrogea towards Germany. Spain was not a secondary destination for any of the regional flows, between 1990 and In the stage after 2001, it has established itself, in this respect, as destination for the departures from Moldova, Oltenia and Crişana-Maramureş. The analysis at the level of the micro-region enable a more accurate observation of the dynamics of the flows of temporary work emigration abroad (Table 13): the temporary emigration from the Focşani micro-region was much more concentrated than that from the Alexandria micro-region ever since the period In the first case, more than 60% of the departures total during the respective period were towards Italy, and in the second case only 20% were directed towards a single country, Spain. There is a strong momentum and infectiousness of the phenomenon at the microregional level. The flow that was the most important in the beginning, becomes even more important with time. The migration towards Italy increases from 63%, in the first stage, to 85% in the last period, that after Similarly, the flow towards Spain, which was dominant from the Alexandria area, increases from 20%, in the first stage, to 86% in the current period, after In the process of concentration of the flows towards specific destinations, certain countries disappear as target for the temporary emigration. Turkey, Libya and Yugoslavia/Serbia, for example, cease to be destinations for those in search of work, coming from Alexandria. France, Israel and Switzerland have a similar fate, with regard to the emigrants from the Focşani area. Who, until now? The major trend regarding the social composition of the migrants is towards diversification. In the beginning, the core of the departures was represented by married men, with vocational education or high school, from the urban area (Table 5). Later on, the flows of the temporary emigration abroad diversify. The percentage of women, for example, in the temporary emigration abroad total triples, the villagers come to equal the townspeople in numbers, the percentage of not married migrants more than quadruples, and that of the secondary school graduates increases more than eight times. The percentage of the segments that have provided, to a great extent, the source for the pioneers of the migration abroad reduces considerably for the university graduates and for the Magyars. The average residential age profile of the migrants has undergone considerable changes (Table 6). In the temporary emigration take-off stage, the flow of townspeople aged 30 to 54 prevailed. They represented almost half of the flow total of temporary departures from the country to work abroad. However, the percentage of this segment in that flow s total reduces to almost a quarter in the current period. On the other hand, both in the urban area, and in the rural area, the category of migrants made up of young people aged 15 to 29 becomes more and more apparent. In comparison with the previously described pattern, existent at the national level, at regional level there are considerable variations in the migrants profile on stages of departure (Table 16). In the Alexandria micro-region, for example, the pioneering stage, , was 16

22 characteristic to vocational school graduates from the urban area. In the Focşani micro-region, the prevailing type of migrant was that of high school graduate, residing in the rural area. The university graduates were present to a much greater extent in the flows from Teleorman than in those from Vrancea, especially in the beginning of the 90 s. The intermediate stage, between 1996 and 2001, was strongly marked in Alexandria by the migration of the Neo- Protestants, high school graduates. In the Focşani area, the main change in the composition of the flows of temporary work emigration occurred in connection with the age structure. By comparison to the previous stage, the percentage of not married individuals increased more than five times. A similar process has occurred in Alexandria, only in the third stage, after In the third stage, the main structural changes in Alexandria resided in the increase in the percentage of the Romany migrants, the decrease in the percentage of Neo-Protestants, and the significant increase in the percentage of women. Throughout the country, the pattern of the economic migration abroad seems to have followed different dissemination patterns. In Vrancea, it starts from developed localities to less developed localities. Who, in the future? Almost 11% of the Romanians aged 18 to 59 would like to leave to work abroad within the following year. It results that over one million Romanians (1,400,000) would like to emigrate temporarily in order to find work. We shall see shortly that the percentage of those actually decided or of those who already have a structured departure plan is much smaller. For now, let s note that even the mere intention is strongly differentiated in the social world (Figure 7): the previous work experience abroad is the strongest stimulus to want this again. Approximately 40% of those who have already worked abroad would like to leave again. not only one s own experience counts in stimulating the intention to emigrate for work, but also that of one s family. the most dynamic age segment is that of the young people aged 18 to % of them want to emigrate abroad temporarily, for work. For those aged over 40, this intention is almost absent. the percentage of men inclined towards economic emigration, to work abroad, is almost double compared to that of women. the difference between the intensity of the work emigration intention, in the urban area compared to the rural area, is small 12% in the communes compared to 10% in the towns. on the other hand, within the same historical region, the differences of emigration intentionality between the rural and urban areas are most often significant. o In rural Moldova, for example, the percentage of people who would like to leave temporarily to work abroad is 17% compared to only 12% at the level of the towns from the same historical region. o Similarly, the people living in the villages of Banat desire more than the townspeople to emigrate for work (19% in the rural area compared to 13% in the urban area). o A maximum intensity difference is that between rural Dobrogea, with 14% intentions towards economic emigration, and the urban Dobrogea, with only 3%. o o The people of Muntenia show an intensity under the country average in affirming the intention to temporarily emigrate for work. However, the propensity for temporary economic emigration of the people in the urban areas seems to be somewhat greater than that of the people in the rural areas, at the level of this region (10% in the urban area compared to 7% in the rural area). Oltenia follows the same pattern, its townspeople are more inclined to leave to work abroad, compared to the villagers ( 13% versus 6%). 17

23 o For the villagers and the townspeople in Transilvania, the percentages in question are similar. The degree of structuring of the intention to leave is relatively low (Figure 9): almost one third of those with intention to leave do not have any arrangements related to the project or do not provide specifications on that subject; a quarter of them declares that they only have plans, but no real arrangements; 17% of them have already solved the issues related to the job; another quarter of them have other resources to leave money, relations, accommodation at the destination. The people who only intend to leave to work abroad, but do not have a structured plan or have not saved any resources for that action are predominantly young men from the urban area, with incomes and relational capital higher than the average, who are dissatisfied, however, with their financial status (Table A8, Table 7). Moreover, they can speak a little Italian. It is a type of frustration migration, still not structured at the level of the projects. Those who show it are not poor. They have a relatively good financial status, but a much higher level of aspirations. For this reason, their frustrations are more stressed. The target of their migration is mainly Italy. The people who have begun to save resources for their departure money, relations, securing a job or accommodation at the destination are also young people, with a good relational capital. What is specific to them is the fact that they have previously worked abroad or they are part of families with experience of migration abroad. They know either Italian, or Spanish. Those who only have plans for their departure, but do not have arrangements in that respect, are also young people who have worked abroad. Their resources to get by abroad are, however, low they do not know foreign languages and do not have special relations. It results that the degree of structuring of the intention to leave to work abroad depends decisively on relations and the knowledge of foreign languages. The previous migration experiences are facilitating factors for knowing foreign languages and for accumulating relational capital. How do you get to work abroad? How did people leave the country in the 90s and how do they leave after 2001? Who were those who facilitated the departure? What about finding work abroad? How was the integration phase at the destination? These are the main questions that I shall answer now. Of course, the answers are limited by the nature of the survey data that I am working with. In the first stage, , it prevailed the pattern of departure without support, without assistance from anybody. Only 22% of those who left for work during that period received help from someone (Table 8). As the number of departures and of the people left increases, personal networks expand. 40% of the migrants received help for departure between 1996 and 2001, and after 2001, their percentage reached 60%. At present, the relatives in the locality are those who facilitate the departure the most (for 23% of those who migrated for work between 2002 and 2006), followed by the friends in the locality (16%) and by the acquaintances in the locality (5%). Most of the locals who offered their help for the departure were, at that time when the help was given, in the country of destination. The departure for work with help from someone follows, in essence, the supply and demand pattern. The request or the need for help is greater for the women with a low level of education, residing in poor villages. The offer to help mostly comes from the regional community migration networks. In regions with more experience of emigration abroad (such as Vrancea, compared to Teleorman), the facilitations of the departures are better established and, consequently, more accessible The statements in this paragraph are derived from the regularities of a logistic regression pattern according to which the call for help for the departure, as a dependent variable, is put in connection with predictors relative to age, education, gender, residence environment, departure year, micro-region and the level of development of that locality. The data used for the calculations are 1,806 of the departures 18

24 Finding a job abroad was, in the beginning of the 90, achieved especially through labour intermediation companies (for 22% of the migrants form that period) and through friends (25%). Gradually, the companies lost their importance, decreasing to only 11% in the stage after The percentage of people who found a job through the Office for Labour Force Migration also declined. In exchange, the part played by the relatives who were already abroad becomes more and more important. If, in the beginning, they were useful for only 7% of the migrants in finding a job, at present, more than a quarter of the migrants find a job through them. The solution of asking the employer directly maintains a relatively constant part for approximately 15% of the work migrants. According to the prevailing path to find a job at the destination, we can identify (Table 9) : the kinship path, specific to those who left to work in Spain, the friends and relatives path, specific to the departure for Italy, the foreign friends path, used especially for the departures towards nearby countries, such as Turkey and Hungary, the labour intermediation companies path in Romania, with an essential part in the migrations towards Germany, Israel and Greece. Details about the changes in the way of finding jobs can be provided in connection with the migration towards Italy and towards Spain, the main countries of attraction (Table 10). The kinship path prevails when it comes to Spain. However, the percentage of those who take this path is decreasing, from 50% between 1996 and 2001 to 30% after Asking employers and friends directly seems to be a path that is more and more used. On the way to work in Italy, the part played by kinship is increasing. The call for the friends help in finding employment is also more and more frequent on that path. Most of the people who worked abroad, worked illegally (Table 11). If, in the stage, the percentage of the people who worked illegally out of the work migrants total was 34%, after 2001, that percentage increases up to 53%. The attempts to legalize the status throughout the period of departure have increased, but the percentage of people who declare that they have failed in those attempts has also increased. Employment abroad is mainly in constructions, for men, and in the household, for housekeeping activities, for women (Table14). This kind of activity has seen a substantial increase, from 7% between 1996 and 2001 up to 28% after Those who more often work illegally are the housekeepers (78%) and the farmers (56%) (Figure 10). The Romanians have worked illegally in particular in Turkey and in Italy (Table 12). Illegal employment is specific to those who have gone to Germany, Greece, Israel, Canada and the United States. Employment in Spain has been predominantly illegal, but with a smaller disparity between legal and illegal than in the case of those gone to Italy or Turkey. Conclusions Intensity of the phenomenon. More than a third of the country s households, approximately two million and a half, have had at least one member gone abroad after Approximately one fifth of the Romanian households have had at least one member who has worked abroad. The percentage of people aged 18 to 59 who have worked abroad after 1989 is at least 12%. Stages. The temporary departures to work abroad have had a frequency of approximately 28 to 1,000 inhabitants aged 15 to 64. The intensity of the phenomenon has become more pronounced particularly after 2002, at the same time with the liberalization of the circulation of Romanians within the Schengen area. At present, the phenomenon of the temporary departure to work abroad is approximately three times more intense than in to work abroad from the Alexandria and Focşani micro-regions. For 297 departures, the values for all the variables of the pattern were not available. The pattern enables the accurate prediction in 63% of the cases and has associated a R2 Nagelkerke of

25 In the recent history of the temporary migration of the Romanians to foreign countries, there are three separate stages marked by the time intervals , , after The maximum work emigration rates have been of 3 in the first period, 7 in the second one, and 28 in the time interval after The three stages of the Romanian temporary emigration are found, with very small time differences, in the Romanian residence history in Italy (Figure 2): from a maximum of 14 thousand Romanian residents during the time interval , they reached a maximum of 34 thousand, and at the end of 2005 the number of residence permits given to the Romanians in Italy reached 300 thousand. When outlining the profile of the three stages, there are not only differences in the intensity, but also in the structure of the phenomenon: The exploration of Europe by the Romanian migrants began between 1990 and 1995 especially with Israel, Turkey, Italy, Hungary and Germany. In the second stage, the exploration area expanded especially towards Spain and other distant countries in Europe or the American continent (USA and Canada). In the Schengen stage, the work migration flows became more and more concentrated. Italy attracts half of the departures of this stage, and Spain attracts a quarter. The third and fourth places regarding the appeal are still occupied by Germany and Hungary. The intensity differences in the temporary work migration have not been significant between the major historical provinces of Romania Moldova, Muntenia and Transilvania (Figure 6). Later on, after 2001, Moldova becomes the main emigration source. Things occur as if the ancient flow from Moldova to Banat, Braşov and Bucharest was interrupted in the beginning of the 90s so that it may shift towards Italy after Territorial differences. Moldova, Muntenia and Oltenia are the historical regions where the temporary migration for work abroad has been more intense than that for tourism-visit. In xchange, in Banat, Transilvania, Dobrogea and Bucharest, the temporary departures for tourism-visit have been more frequent than those for work (Figure 4). Moldova is typical for the departures for economic reasons, and Banatul is typical for the pattern of region where the temporary departures for tourism prevail. With time, the dominant features of the emigration for work change even within the same historical region: Between 1990 and 2001, the people from Moldova left in relatively equal numbers to work in Italy and in Israel. After 2001, the departures to Italy from this region reached a total of 76% of the departures for work total (Table 2, Table 3). From Muntenia, by 2001, people left to work especially in Turkey. Later on, Spain has become the dominant target. The people from Oltenia reorientate from Canada to Italy. For the people of Transilvania, the change of direction in the work migration involves the replacement of Hungary, as preferred destination, with Italy. The people of Banat also replace Serbia and Sweden, as preferred destinations, with Italy. Socio-demographic differences. Initially, between 1990 and 1995, the departures for work were very selective. The people who left were more men than women, more townspeople than villagers, more mature people than young ones. Later on, after 2001, the flows have balanced each other: the percentage of women who have left to work abroad has become close to that of men (Table 5); the percentage of villagers has become almost equal to that of townspeople; the percentage of those who have secondary education has increased in the departures total; the young people tend to become dominant in the work emigration flows. Departure. Between 1990 and 1995, the typical kind of departures was the pioneeringadventure kind. Later on, in particular after 2001, the departures with someone s help have become dominant. This someone is predominantly a relative who is already in the country of destination (Table 8). Work at the destination. The dominant pattern is that according to which the migrant in search of a job already has a relative at the destination. The latter arranges, most of the 20

26 times illegally, a job for the relative in the country. The percentage of people who worked illegally is increasing, from 34% between 1990 and 1995 up to 53% after The constructions for men (98%), the housekeeping for women (88%), and the agriculture (72% men and 28% women) are the main occupations of Romanians abroad (Table 11). The percentage of housekeeping work tripled in the work total carried out by Romanians abroad, between 1990 and 1995, and 2002 and The illegal practice of an occupation is very common in the case of housekeeping and agricultural occupations in the country of destination. Generally, the illegal occupation has been much more common in Turkey and Italy, and the legal one in Germany, Greece, Israel, Canada and the United States of America. Intentions to leave for work. Much like the actual departures, the work emigration intentions focus on destinations like Italy (34%) and Spain (20%). Germany and USA follow, very far behind. The percentage of people who would like to leave for work abroad within the following year, out of the total of people aged 18 to 59, is approximately 11%. However, a quarter of them do not have any kind of structuring of their departure plan. For another quarter of the potential migrants, some departure plans are formulated. A percentage of approximately 40% represents those who have already started to save resources or to make some departure arrangements (Figure 9). The strongest intentions to temporarily emigrate for work are those of young men from the rural areas of Moldova and Banat. Among the factors that favour considerably the intention to leave to work abroad, we mention the previous work experience abroad, the frustration related to one s own financial status, the knowledge of a foreign language (Italian, Spanish or English, in particular), the existence of a good stock of personal-family relations, and being part of a household where somebody has worked abroad before. Appendix: Technical details of data analysis Table A8 Predictors of the intention of temporarily emigrating to work abroad with intention but no with resources saved for structured plan with structured plan departure Predictors Exp(B) Sig. Exp(B) Sig. Exp(B) Sig. age man* lives in urban area* personal income in the past month relational capital in the country has worked abroad* is part of a household where someone lived/lives temporarily abroad* temporary emigration rate from the locality mass media consumption index speaks Spanish* speaks Italian* frustration index Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample, people aged 18 to 59. The table shows the results of an analysis by multinomial logistic regression. N=878. Reference category people with no intention to leave to work abroad. R2 Nagelkerke =0.26. Dichotomous variables where we put 1 for the existence of the attribute and 0 for its absence. Table A9 Predictors of the opinion the people who have worked abroad think differently 21

27 regression coefficient p dependent do not think differently variable threshold non response years of school finished age household goods index location variables Personal income (ln) (predictors) migration experience worked travelled with mig. intention in mig. family no mig. exper.* gender woman man* 0. Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample R2 Nagelkerke=0.08. * reference category 22

28 Table A10 Indices used in data analysis type of migration experience 1 has worked abroad, 2 has not worked but travelled for other reasons, 3 has neither worked nor travelled but intends to leave to work, 4 has no migration experience, nor intentions to leave but lives in a household with former or current migrants abroad, 5 has no migration experience abroad whatsoever (see Figure 18). relational capital in the country index for counting the institutions where the individual admits to have connections that he/she can count on town hall, police, business world, county institutions, court, for medical problems, for getting a job is part of a migrant household is part of a household where someone lived/lives temporarily abroad temporary emigration rate from the locality 2002 gone temporarily abroad at the time of the census of 2002 mass media consumption index factorial score with variables related to the frequency of reading the newspapers, watching TV and listening to radio. financial frustration index index for counting the goods that the individual does not own because he/she can not afford them car, mobile phone, telephone set, refrigerator, cable TV/satellite dish, colour TV, video, freezer, washing machine, automatic washing machine, computer, access to the Internet, Thermopane glass windows 23

29 Tables and charts Stages first departure total departures Figure 1 Temporary departures to work abroad in 1,000 inhabitants, Data source: TLA, departures basic folder. Example of data reading: in 2005, there were recorded approximately 28 temporary departures to work abroad in 1,000 inhabitants aged 15 to 64. The chart does not refer to the number of migrants, but to that of temporary migration acts. The figures in the chart represent temporary emigration abroad rates for the population aged 15 to 64 from the 1,400 households in the sample. No events associated with people who definitively left the household or with those who deceased can be recorded. Figure 2 Romanian residents in Italy, (Data source: Children under 18 who did not have their own residence permit and were mentioned in their parents permit are not included. In 2004 and 2005, the number of Romanian residents in Italy is of 240,513 and, respectively 297,570 according to the data from ISTAT consulted in October. These last two figures are not fully comparable to those of the period between 1990 and 2003.) Places of origin and destinations Table 1 Temporary departures to work abroad on countries and time periods (%) Migration period Country of destination Total Italy

30 Spain Germany Hungary Israel Turkey Greece Canada Belgium Russia others NR % Departures total N People gone total departures per migrant Source: TLA Survey, folder of departures to work abroad between 1990 and N=

31 Moldova Muntenia Transilvania Crisana-Maramures Oltenia Banat Dobrogea Bucuresti Figure 3 Temporary emigration abroad rate on historical regions and time periods ( ) Source: TLA Survey, folder with adult people in households. N=3499. Example of chart data reading: the rate of temporary departures to work from Moldova, between 2002 and 2006, was of Moldova Muntenia Oltenia Crisana- Maramures Bucuresti Dobrogea Transilvania Banat percentage of departures for work percentage of departures for other reasons beside work and commerce Figure 4 Percentage of adult people, aged 18+, who have worked abroad before or have temporarily left the country for other reasons than work or trade, on historical regions N= Reading example: 11% of the adult people in the households included in the survey, from Moldova, have worked abroad between 1990 and

32 Table 2 Main destinations of temporary emigration on historical regions, Moldova Muntenia Oltenia Dobrogea Transilvania Crişana- Maramureş Banat Bucharest Total Israel Italy Hungary Turkey Spain Germany Canada Greece Belgium Serbia Austria Sweden 22 1 others NR Source: TLA Survey, folder with departures to work between 1990 and N=168. Table 3 Main destinations of temporary emigration on historical regions, Moldova Muntenia Oltenia Dobrogea Transilvania Crişana - Maramureş Banat Bucharest Total Italy Spain Germany Hungary Greece France others NR Source: TLA Survey, folder with departures to work between 2002 and N=

33 Who left to work abroad household with 6+ pers household with 5 pers. household with 4 pers. household with 3 pers total households household with 2 pers. household with 1 pers % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% household without migrants household with migrants Figure 5 Percentage of households with people who have worked abroad on gender, age and residence categories Data source: TLA Survey, basic folder, weighted for number of households. Example of data reading: at least 35% of the current households made up of three individuals have had a direct experience abroad through at least one individual who has worked or travelled abroad between 1990 and Table 4 Percentage of people who have worked abroad on age, residential environments and gender categories age left from men women total 18 to 29 rural urban to 59 rural urban rural urban Total Source: TLA Survey, folder with adult people in households. N=3994. Reading: 19% of the young people aged 18 to 29 from the rural area have worked abroad between 1990 and The data refers to the age at the time of the survey and not to the age at the time of the departure abroad. 28

34 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% total men women Figure 6 Departures to work abroad on stages and gender categories From the total of temporary departures to work abroad, between 1990 and 1995, 88% were departures of men. Source: TLA Survey, folder with departures to work abroad. N=

35 Table 5 Who left to work abroad (%) stages Total gender women men urban rural urban nationality Romanians Magyars others Civil status married not married others (widow/widower, divorced etc.) education primary secondary vocational and high school university/college Data source: the TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to 64. For each question there are calculated the percentages during that stage, on columns. Example of reading: 56% of the departures between 2002 and 2006 have been departures of men. Table 6 Departures to work abroad on residential environments, age categories and stages departures age category stages total from rural 15 to rural 30 to rural 55 to urban 15 to urban 30 to urban 55 to Data source: the TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to

36 Intentions of migrating for work Dobrogea urban Crisana-Maram. urban Oltenia rural Muntenia rural Bucharest Crisana-Maram. rural Muntenia urban Moldova urban Oltenia urban Transilvania rural Banat urban Transilvania urban Dobrogea rural Moldova rural Banat rural women men years years years years household with migrant in the household with migrant in the past total sample Figure 7 Percentage of people who want to leave to work abroad within the following year Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample, subsample of people aged 18 to 59. N=973. Example of reading: 40% of the people aged 18 to 59, who have worked abroad, would like to leave again to work outside the country within the following year. unspecified 26 others 13 Germany 3 USA 4 Spain 20 Italy Figure 8 Countries where those with intentions to leave would like to work (%) Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample, subsample of people with intention to leave to work abroad. N=106. Example of reading: 20 % of the people aged 18 to 59, who would like to leave abroad to work, within the following year, target Spain as place of destination. 31

37 NA 5 money 3 yes, accommodation 8 yes, connections 13 yes, a job 17 only plans no Figure 9 Do you have any arrangements made for the departure? Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample. The percentages are calculated from the total of those who declared that they intended to leave to work abroad, within the following year, and who were aged 18 and 59. N=106. Although multiple answers were possible, the number of those who indicated several choices is very low, therefore, we noted the percentages for those who provided a single answer. Example of reading: 26% of those who declared that they intended to leave to work abroad, within the following year, mentioned that they had not only plans to this end, they did not take any action. Table 7 Profile of the people according to the degree of structuring of the intention to leave to work abroad no intention of emigrating with intention but no plan with intention and plan with intention and resources saved average age (years old) % men % speak Italian % speak Spanish % speak English relational capital index percentage of people in sample total Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample, people aged 18 to 59 Example of reading: 28% of those who intend to leave to work abroad and have resources to this end state that they can speak Italian. total 32

38 Means for departure and for finding jobs Table 8 How the migrant arrived abroad (%) he/she received help from someone for departure Who helped him/her leave Where the person helping him/her lived How did you manage to get a job abroad stages Total yes no NR local, relative local, friend local, acquaintance others not the case NR in the country in the country of destination in another country not specified NR contracts mediated by the labour force office through labour intermediation companies in Romania through relatives abroad through friends abroad I asked the employer directly others NR Data source: TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to 64. For each question there are calculated the percentages during that stage, on columns. Example of reading: 69% of those who left to work between 1990 and 1995 did not receive special assistance from an individual for departure. 33

39 Table 9 How did you manage to find work abroad, through.? (%) country where he/she contracts through the worked labour force office labour relatives intermediation abroad companies in Romania friends abroad asking employer directly others NR total % N Spain Italy Hungary Turkey Germany Israel Canada Greece other countries non-response total Data source: TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to 64, 535 people who have worked abroad in a total of 1,400 interviewed households. Table 10 Ways to find a job in Italy and in Spain, on stages (%) Time period contracts through labour force office labour intermediation companies in Romania relatives abroad friends abroad asking employer directly others NR total % N Spain Italy Data source: TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to 64 34

40 Table 11 Where and how did the migrant work? What fields did you work in? Did you work legally or illegally throughout this departure? Did you legalize your situation during that departure to work? stages total agriculture constructions housekeeping others NR legally illegally both legally and illegally NR no, I didn t even try no, although I tried yes NR Data source: TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to 64. For each question there are calculated the percentages during that stage, on columns. Example of reading: 41% of the departures to work between 1990 and 1995 were for construction work. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% both legal and clandestine 7 13 DA clandestine legal agriculture contruction housekeeping others NA all the areas occupation Figure 110 Status of the migrants abroad on occupations Data source: TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to 64. Example of reading: 56% of the total number of Romanians, who have worked in agriculture, have worked with illegal status. Table 12 How the migrants have worked abroad, on countries (%) The migrants have worked abroad. both total illegally legally illegally and legally non-response % N 35

41 Turkey Italy Spain Germany Hungary Greece Israel Canada USA other countries non-response countries total Data source: TLA Survey, temporary departures to work, people aged 15 to 64. Example of reading: 60% of the total number of Romanians, who have worked in Italy, have worked with illegal status. 36

42 Focşani and Alexandria as contrasting micro-regions 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% DA % 30% 20% 10% 0% stage stage stage rural urban rural urban Alexandria Focsani Figure 11 Departures to work abroad on micro-regions, residential environments and stages Data source: TLA Survey, micro-regions sample Example of reading: 82.3% of the total number of departures to work abroad, from the rural Alexandria-Teleorman micro-region, have been recorded between 2002 and

43 Table 13 Temporary departures to work abroad, on places of origin, destinations and time periods (%) Alexandria* micro-region Focşani** micro-region Spain Italy Germany Turkey Israel Germany USA France France Israel Turkey Greece Libya Switzerland Yugoslavia Spain Italy Holland others others non-response 0.9 non-response Total % Total % N N Data source: TLA Survey, micro-regions sample. Example of reading: 84.6% of the total number of departures to work from the Focşani-Vrancea micro-region, between 2002 and 2006, have had Italy as destination. *AlexandriaTeleorman micro-region: Alexandria, Poroschia, Călineşti, Drăgăneşti-Vlaşca, Furculeşti, Necşeşti(Lăceni), Piatra, Ţigăneşti, Viişoara, Nenciuleşti, Frăsinet. **Focşani-Vrancea micro-region: Focşani, Câmpineanca, Goleşti, Garoafa, Gura Caliţei, Năneşti, Poiana Cristei, Suraia, Tănăsoaia, Vânători. In each of the two micro-regions, we interviewed 400 people in households with migration experience abroad (with people who have been or are gone abroad). 38

44 Table 14 How migrants leave and what occupations they have abroad, on micro-regions of departure (%) Did someone help you at departure? How did you manage to find work on departure? What fields did you work in? Did you work legally or illegally throughout this departure? Alexandria-Teleroman micro-region Masculine Focşani-Vrancea micro-region Feminine Masculine Feminine yes no NR contracts mediated by the labour force office through labour intermediation companies in Romania through labour intermediation companies abroad through relatives abroad through friends abroad I asked the employer directly others NR agriculture constructions housekeeping others NR legally illegally Both legally and illegally NR N (number of departures ) Data source: TLA Survey, micro-regions sample departures to work. Example of reading: 40.8% of the men s departures from the Alexandria micro-region, men who have worked abroad, have been associated with illegal work at the destination. The calculations are done by comparison to the number of departures to work, between 1990 and 2006, for the 800 people interviewed in the two micro-regions, and not to the number of people. Table 15 Migration and development profile of the communities included in the micro-regional surveys Locality Village Percentage of departures to work abroad out of total, between 1990 and qlife % Neo- Protestants departures out of departures total. village Commuti ng rate 1990 Alexandria micro-region. ALEXANDRIA FRĂSINET FRĂSINET central 23.8 VIIŞOARA VIIŞOARA peripheral

45 NECŞEŞTI LĂCENI peripheral POROSCHIA CALOMFIREŞTI central 20.6 CĂLINEŞTI CĂLINEŞTI central 57.2 ŢIGĂNEŞTI ŢIGĂNEŞTI central 18.3 DRĂGĂNEŞTI- DRĂGĂNEŞTI VLAŞCA VLASCA central POROSCHIA POROSCHIA central 12.9 FURCULEŞTI FURCULEŞTI peripheral 15.7 NENCIULEŞTI NENCIULEŞTI central 11.7 PIATRA PIATRA Focşani micro-reg FOCŞANI SURAIA SURAIA central CÂMPINEANCA CÂMPINEANCA central GOLEŞTI GOLEŞTI central 38.5 POIANA CRISTEI POIANA CRISTEI peripheral 11.2 GAROAFA STRĂJESCU peripheral CÂMPINEANCA PIETROASA central 11.0 GURA CALIŢEI GURA CALIŢEI peripheral 8.2 TĂNĂSOAIA MARTINEŞTI central 20.3 NĂNEŞTI NĂNEŞTI peripheral 33.6 DEALU POIANA CRISTEI CUCULUI peripheral 34.2 VÂNĂTORI RĂDULEŞTI peripheral Table 16 Migrants profile according to the time period and the micro-region of departure Alexandria micro-region Focşani micro-region men * not married* Romany* Neo-Protestants* secondary ed. grad.* vocational ed. grad.* high school ed. grad.* university ed. grad.* townspeople* average development level of locality of departure Data source: TLA Survey, micro-regions sample departures to work. * Dichotomous variables with code 1 for the existence of the attribute and 0 for its absence. Example of reading: 40

46 Consequences and plans Incomes and investments from migration Vlad Grigoraş International migration is seen, at discourse level, as one of the main engines of change both in the life quality of individuals (by the substantial increase in the level of income), and in their life style (by changes in their needs and expectations regarding the type of consumption), after In this respect, more than 80% of the interviewees believe that those who leave to work abroad have a higher level of well-being than other individuals (this perception does not seem to be affected by the personal migration experience Table 3 17 ). To what extent is this perception confirmed by reality, in other words to what extent does international (temporary) migration experience actually change the type of consumption? How many households currently have income sources from migration, and how important are these sources of income? Are the money from migration invested, and if yes, what would individuals rather do with these incomes? These are some of the questions that this chapter will attempt to answer. Incomes from international migration The strategies to bring money into the country are numerous (some individuals prefer to save money for a longer period of time, in order to send it back to the country for investment, others buy themselves durables from abroad or send money frequently) which makes it impossible to estimate the income flow from abroad, at present. However, we can estimate what is the percentage of households that currently have money from abroad, as source of income, by identifying the families with members who work abroad and the families with former members who work abroad and who still send money and/or packages into the country. Thus, more than 5% of the interviewed households, at national level, currently have at least one member gone to work abroad (Table 1). It is very likely that these households receive money from the individuals abroad, all the more as over 50% of them include at least one individual gone abroad, married to someone in the country. Apart from these migrant households, another 2% have former members who are abroad and still send packages or money. Table 1 Households with members gone to work abroad or with former members who send packages/money into the country, (%) % households Households with one member gone to work abroad 3.9 Households with 2 or more members gone to work abroad 1.4 Households with former members abroad, who send packages or money 2.1 Of course, apart from the individuals who can be easily identified as bringing money to the households that they are or were part of, there are others who send money into the country to relatives/friends, but their number is probably even lower. The existence of such people is also confirmed by our data from the 12 cases who declared that the most important 17 Nevertheless, we notice that those who do not have a migration experience were not able to estimate, to a greater extent, whether those who work abroad are wealthier (about 12% of them answered NS/NR compared to maximum 9%, in the case of the other respondents). 41

47 source of income in the past month came from other people abroad, five households have no member or former member currently abroad 18. Regardless of the source of the money, we can see that 5% of the individuals who believe that their life, at present, is better than the one they had a few years ago, mention that this change is mainly due to the money coming from migration. Investments made with incomes from international migration The current picture of the possible sources of income from migration is not enough yet; it is important to also observe what is the amount of the resources brought into the country in the course of so many years of international migration. The direct impact of the migration abroad can be easily counted by analysing the investments made with the money earned from working abroad. The analysis of the investments also allows us to observe to what extent the households invest this money in activities that produce income or, on the contrary, just in durables that do not produce income. The national data show that, in the last five years, a significant part of the Romanians invested in durables: 50% of the Romanians bought household appliances, 37% expanded /modernized their home, and 16% bought cars, etc. (Table 4). However, regardless of the goods purchased, about 10% of the investments were made with the help of the incomes from migration (Table 5). If we narrow the analysis to just the individuals who purchased goods with money from the migration abroad, we notice that more than 50% of them invested in expanding/modernizing their home, and that the same percentage also invested in purchasing household appliances. A significant percentage (about 21%) represents the households that, in the last five years, spent money from migration in order to purchase one or several cars. The regional data (by combining the information about the Alexandria micro-region in Teleorman and the Focşani micro-region in Vrancea) allows us to analyse more accurately how the individuals spend the money earned by working abroad, as, in this case, the migrants sample is more substantial, and the number of those who purchased goods with money from abroad is much higher. The regional sample provides also us with the possibility to differentiate the consumption of the individuals according to their residential environment (even though the urban environment is only represented by individuals who live in towns of up to 200,000 inhabitants). The data in Table 2 allows us to draw our conclusions: With regard to those who used, in the last 5 years, money from migration in order to purchase goods or make other investments, 72% in the rural area and 84% in the urban area have purchased/built houses or expanded/modernized their existing homes. Building a house is a strategy widely spread among those who live in the rural area, compared to those who live in the urban area, the latter preferring to improve the comfort of their existing homes. Almost three quarters of the individuals (with slight differences between the two environments) bought household appliances with the money from migration. Purchasing a car is one of the widely spread strategies of spending the money (about 30% of the respondents who invested the money earned during their migration preferring it with slight differences between the urban and the rural areas). With regard to the productive activities, we notice the existence of some clear differences between the strategies of individuals from the urban area and those of the individuals from the rural area if, in the rural area, the households invest the money mainly in agricultural activities (buying land or tending the lands they already own and buying agricultural machines), in the urban area, the individuals have been interested to a greater extent in investing in other types of business. If we compare the two micro-regions (Alexandria and Focşani), we observe that, in Focşani, the percentage of households with migration experience that made investments, 18 In this case, the number of cases is less relevant, what matters is only the fact that there are such households in the sample. 42

48 in the last five years, with money from abroad, is much higher than in the Alexandria area 62% compared to 35%. Moreover, the structure of the expenses incurred with the money from abroad varies a lot in the two micro-regions which is probably explicable in terms of the different migration experience. Thus, even though in Teleorman the percentage of people who expanded/modernized their homes is higher than in Vrancea, in the Focşani area, the individuals built houses for themselves, purchased lands, invested in cars or in household appliances, etc. to a much greater extent (Table 8). Table 2 Percentage of people who invested in various goods, in the total number of people who invested with incomes from their migration abroad, on environments Rural area Urban area Rural area Urban area Purchased house Tended agricultural land 43 2 Built house Bought agricultural machines 5 0 Expanded/modernized home Set up a business 2 12 Purchased car Bought household appliances Bought lands for house building 8 4 Tourism Bought lands for agriculture 14 1 Bought computer Data source: TLA Survey, regional sample (Teleorman and Vrancea) The number of cases in the urban area is 295, and that in the rural area is 93. The departures abroad have had, it seems, a greater impact on the consumption of durables than the data above-mentioned shows from the respondents who had in their household members who left abroad after 1989, more than 22% declared that someone s migration abroad brought transformations of the home and 31% that the experience abroad led to changes in the goods purchased, in general (Table 9 and Table 11). These percentages are much higher compared to the percentages of the households with migration experience after 1989, which invested in various goods with money from abroad (Table 7). We observe that, from those who declared that the departures abroad brought transformations of the home, only 38% transformed their home (house purchasing/building or expansion/modernization) with money from abroad, 32% with money from the country, and 29% did not make any transformations at all, which supports the idea that the migration has not brought changes in the life style just by means of the money earned from working abroad, but also by means of the changes in values, expectations, needs. The above-mentioned data shows us that the individuals who go abroad buy more durables for comfort (cars, household appliances), and less goods that can be used in productive activities. However, we wonder whether the tendency to invest in such goods is just a characteristic of the migrants or it occurs to the same extent in other individuals with similar socio-economic characteristics (education, incomes, residential environment, etc.). The data in Table 12 indicates the following: The most important predictors of the number of durables in the household are the classical indicators that may provide an indirect picture of the level of a household s current or long-term incomes the amount of expenses of the household, the number of employed individuals, the maximum level of education of the adults and the residential environment. The indicators regarding the migration of the individuals forming the household are statistically significant when comparing the households that have individuals who have worked abroad, after 1989, or individuals involved in illegal trafficking, after 1989, to similar households with respect to the other characteristics, but which did not have migration experience. Conclusions 1. About 7% of the households currently have incomes from international migration. 5% of the households which mention that they live better at present, compared to the last few years, also mention that this is due to the incomes from migration. 43

49 2. About 10% of the volume of each type of investment, in the last five years, is achieved with the help of the incomes from international migration. With regard to the type of the expenses the most important are the investments in the house (expansion/modernization but also construction or purchase), followed by the purchase of household appliances, cars and other durables. The productive activities financed with money from migration seem to vary, according to the residential environment in the rural area, the money is invested mainly in agricultural activities, while in the urban area the money is invested in other types of business. 3. The migrant households seem to have a larger number of durables compared to the households that have the same socio-economic profile, but no migration experience. Appendix Table 3 Percentage of people who believe that those who have worked abroad become wealthier, according to the migration experience. Migration experience work travel Migration With Without intention migrants migrants Total Yes No DK/NR Total Total N Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Translator s note: DK = don t know Table 4 Households that invested money in various goods in the past five years, (%) % % Purchased house 5 Tended agricultural land 31 Built house 8 Bought agricultural machines 3 Expanded/modernized home 37 Set up a business 3 Purchased car 16 Bought household appliances 48 Bought lands for house building 4 Tourism 16 Bought lands for agriculture 3 Bought computer 21 Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Table 5 Type of income for making various types of investments, (%) incomes earned incomes earned in the country abroad NR Total Total N Purchased house Built house Expanded/modernized home Purchased car Bought lands for house building Bought lands for agriculture Tended agricultural land Bought agricultural machines Set up a business Bought household appliances Tourism Bought computer Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample 44

50 Table 6 Percentage of people who purchased various goods with money from migration in the total number of people who invested with money from abroad, national data (N=103) % % Purchased house 7 Tended agricultural land 14 Built house 12 Bought agricultural machines 7 Expanded/modernized home 53 Set up a business 5 Purchased car 21 Bought household appliances 54 Bought lands for house building 6 Tourism 17 Bought lands for agriculture 5 Bought computer 19 Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Table 7 Households that invested money in various goods, in the last five years, as percentage in the total number of individuals who went abroad after 1989 No Yes, with money from Yes, with money from Yes, NR Total Total N the country abroad Purchased house Built house Expanded/modernized home Purchased car Bought lands for house building Bought lands for agriculture Tended agricultural land Bought agricultural machines Set up a business Bought household appliances Tourism Bought computer Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Table 8 Percentage of people who invested in various goods, in the total number of people who invested with incomes from migration abroad, on micro-regions Teleorman Vrancea Teleorman Vrancea Purchased house Tended agricultural land Built house Bought agricultural machines 5 4 Expanded/modernized home Set up a business 4 5 Purchased car Bought household appliances Bought lands for house building 2 10 Tourism Bought lands for agriculture 3 15 Bought computer Data source: TLA Survey, regional sample (Teleorman and Vrancea) The number of cases in Teleorman is 141, and that in Vrancea is 247. Table 9 Percentage of people who declared that the migration abroad of someone in their household brought transformations of the home - according to the number of people who went to work abroad after 2000 Number of people in the household who went to work abroad after 2000 Did the fact that someone in the household went abroad bring transformations related to the home? Yes No DK/NR Total Total N no individual one individual two or more individuals Total Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample 45

51 Did the fact that someone in your household went abroad for some time bring transformations related to your home? Table 10 Individuals who invested, in the last five years, in their home and who believe that the migration abroad brought transformations related to their home, (%) The household invested in Yes, with Yes, with money the last five years in No money from Yes, NR from abroad Yes No Total Total N the country house purchase? house building? home expansion? Any of the house purchase? house building? home expansion? Any of the Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Table 11 Percentage of people who declared that the migration abroad of someone in their household had an impact on the goods purchased - according to the number of people who went to work abroad after 2000 Did the fact that someone in the household went number of people in the household who abroad have impact on the goods purchased? went to work abroad after 2000 Yes No DK/NR Total Total N no individual one individual two or more individuals Total Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Translator s note: DK = don t know Table 12 Predictors of the number of durables in the household B Beta P Size of the household Amount of expenses incurred in the last month, per member of household Number of employed individuals forming the household Town over 30,000 inhabitants versus village Town under 30,000 inhabitants versus village Maximum level of educ. of adults in household vocational-post-high school versus no school secondary school Maximum level of educ. of adults in household university and post-graduate versus no school secondary school Presence of members who worked abroad after Presence of members who did not work abroad after 1989 but were involved in illegal trafficking R^ Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample. The dependent variable is an additive index of the goods that the household owns (car, mobile phone, refrigerator, cable TV/satellite dish, colour TV, video, freezer, automatic washing machine, computer, access to the Internet, Thermopane glass windows) 46

52 Entrepreneurial orientation Alexandru Toth, Georgiana Toth Both work migration and enterprise represent life strategies, solutions adopted by individuals and households in order to cope with the economic challenges with which they are faced at a certain moment in time. By means of the analysis in this chapter, we intend to provide an answer to the question what is the relation between migration and entrepreneurial orientation in Romania of 2006?. Work migration generates a series of capitals, of which the economic capital is undoubtedly the most important, but we should not forget the human capital and the social capital. The money earned from working abroad contributes in most of the cases to an improvement in the living conditions of the migrant households, being used as this survey also shows (see chapter Incomes and investments from migration ) to improve housing conditions and to purchase durables. Nevertheless, the experience of working abroad may also lead to the accumulation of new knowledge and skills, values, life styles, as well as to the development of the social networks in which the migrant participates. All these resources theoretically have great potential to be used for developing some economic activities on one s own. On the other hand, both the temporary emigration and the enterprise spirit imply taking risks that the individual who chooses such life strategies lays himself/herself open to. Valuing risk-taking is significantly associated only with the work experience abroad (figure 2). Thus, almost 90% of the people who worked abroad believe that, in order to succeed in life, it is important and very important to know how to take risks, compared to 70% of the people who share this opinion, but belong to the other categories of population. TOTAL SAMPLE 69 Work 89 Travel 73 Intention 72 Household with migrant 71 Household without migrant Figure 12 Distribution of the people who believe that today, in Romania, in order to succeed in life, it is important for an individual to know how to take risks (combined % of the answers important and very important ) The number of actual entrepreneurs is relatively low for the overall population. The survey data shows that approximately 10% of the adult population is represented by entrepreneurs, who started a business on their own, and by people who have a member of their household with his/her own business. In general, business in non-agricultural fields prevails, in particular trade and service provision. Among the people who worked or travelled abroad, the percentage of entrepreneurs is significantly higher: 16%, respectively 23%. 47

53 Gest in agriculture Gest in non-agriculture sector Both TOTAL SAMPLE Work Travel Intention 10 Household with migrant Household without migrant Teleorman 2 4 Vrancea Figure 13 Percentage of people who opened a business or perform an independent activity - on fields of activity (%) The percentage of people who, in the last 5 years, invested money in setting up a business is very low for the entire sample just 3%, while 10% of the people who have work experience abroad have made such investments. Also, this percentage is significantly higher for the people who travelled abroad than for the households with no experience abroad. However, it is very likely that the relation between business investments and the two types of experience abroad 1 work and travel has different determinations 2. In the case of the work experience, a part of the capital accumulated by working abroad was used for productive purposes, while in the case of the travel experience, the relation is explicable in terms of the economic resources that the entrepreneur has available, which also allowed him to travel abroad. Figure 14 Percentage of people who, in the last 5 years, invested money in setting up a business (%) 1 Significant relation for p=0.05, determined based on the analysis of the adjusted standardized residuals. 2 The small number of cases in the sample does not enable an in-depth analysis, which would statistically validate this statement, but intuitively this is a pertinent and very plausible hypothesis. 48

54 TOTAL SAMPLE 3 Work 10 Travel 9 Intention 1 Household with migrant 2 Household without migrant 1 Teleorman 2 Vrancea Apart from the entrepreneurial behaviour, we included, in the more general sphere of the entrepreneurial orientation, the intention to develop a business and the willingness to set up a business 1. Among the short and medium-term life strategies, setting up a business is relatively seldom identified at the level of the adult population of Romania just 11% of the Romanians plan to set up a business in the next 2 or 3 years (Figure 1). However, analysing this in terms of the experience abroad, we notice that the people who worked abroad, as well as those who intend to leave abroad, plan to set up a business more than the other categories of population. For almost a quarter of the people who worked / intend to work abroad, the departure abroad seems to be an intermediate stage of a plan aimed at setting up their own business. Figure 15 Distribution of the people who plan to set up a business in the next 2 or 3 years (%) TOTAL SAMPLE 11 Work 27 Travel 14 Intention 23 Household with migrant 13 Household without migrant 6 Teleorman 10 Vrancea For an analysis on the types of entrepreneurial orientations, see D.Sandu, 1999, Spaţiul social al tranziţiei (Social Environment of the Transition), Polirom, pp

55 The intentions to develop a business in the next two years target more the non-agricultural fields than the agriculture. Just like in the case of the question about plans to starting a business, entrepreneurial intentions are associated with the work experience and with the intention to leave abroad. 25% of the respondents who worked abroad and 22% of those who wanted to leave abroad expressed their intention to set up a business in the next two years. At the same time, just 5% of the people in households with no migration experience have entrepreneurial intentions. Figure 16 Percentage of people who intend to set up a business TOTAL SAMPLE Work Travel Intention Household with migrant Household without migrant Teleorman Vrancea bussiness in general non-agriculture agriculture The third type of entrepreneurial orientation was operationalized by the willingness of the individual to set up a business if he/she had the necessary money. Like in the case of entrepreneurial behaviour and intentions, the results of the survey reveal a significant relation between the individual s actual and intentional migration experience, and his/her desire to invest a large sum of money in a business, if he/she had this money. If, in the entire national sample, 21% of the respondents mentioned that they would invest the money in a business, at the level of the people with work and travel experience abroad and of those who intend to go abroad, the percentage of people who choose the entrepreneurial alternative instead of consumption or saving is 33 to 35%. Figure 17 Percentage of people who would invest in a business, if they win a large sum of money (%) TOTAL SAMPLE 21 Work Travel Intention Household with migrant 23 Household without migrant 16 Teleorman 18 Vrancea

56 Comparing the data of the regional surveys, we notice significant differences between the two regions in terms of the percentage of people who intend or are willing to set up a business. Although the actual entrepreneurial behaviour is equally spread in Vrancea and in Teleorman, the intentional entrepreneurship or the desirable entrepreneurship is found in a larger segment in the county from Moldova than in the county located in Câmpia Română (the Romanian Plane). A possible explanation of this discrepancy lies in the differences between the characteristic features of the migration in Vrancea and in Teleorman 1. The number of departures to work, from Vrancea, prior to 2002, was much higher in comparison with Teleorman. This means that a greater number of migrants from Vrancea are at their second or third departure, fact which also induces a higher level of the potential to invest in business, as the consumption needs have been satisfied with the money earned in the first departures. The relationship between the migration experience and the entrepreneurial orientation is an important one, as shown in Table 1. The work experience abroad is in association with two of the types of entrepreneurial orientations: the entrepreneurship by behaviour and that by intention. The intention to start a business is also associated with the intention to leave abroad, while the lack of migration experience is significantly associated with the category of non-entrepreneurs. Table 1 Association between the experience abroad and the entrepreneurial orientation (% of the category defined by the type of experience) 1 See chapter D. Sandu, Exploring Europe through work migrations: in this paper, the Tables and charts section: Focşani and Alexandria as contrasting micro-regions. 51

57 Entrepreneurial orientation 1 Nonentrepreneur By behaviour By intention By willingness / desire Total National sample Type of experience abroad Work Travel Intention Migrant household Non-migrant household Regional samples Teleorman Vrancea Note: The grey cells show positive associations between the characteristic feature on that row and that on the column, resulted following the analysis of the adjusted standardized residuals. Analysing the factors that determine the entrepreneurial orientations by intention and by willingness, we may state that (see Table 2): age is a factor that inversely affects both the intention and the willingness to set up a business. In other words, the probability to have entrepreneurial plans / willingness is greater for young people than for older people; Men are more willing to invest in a business than women are. The willingness to set up a business is also directly influenced direct by the level of education. The entrepreneur status is more desirable for the people with a higher level of education. Education does not significantly affect the intention to start a business. The financial resources determine the intention to start a business, but not the willingness / desire. This can be construed in terms of the hierarchy of needs pyramid, meaning that the entrepreneurial orientation, clearly associated with the risk-taking, is seen as a life strategy in the individuals field of possible choices, only after the basic needs have been satisfied. Entrepreneurship is not a subsistence strategy, but a development one. The relational capital that an individual has, positively affects the intentional entrepreneurship. Otherwise put, the useful relations that an individual has, are of decisive importance in starting a business. The ecological variables, such as the residential environment or the region, do not seem to affect in a significant manner either the intention or the willingness to set up a business. Keeping under control the other factors, work experience abroad is one of the most important determining factors of the intention to set up a business, however, not of the willingness towards entrepreneurship. The work experience abroad increases very much the chances to have entrepreneurial intentions. Table 2 Predictors of the entrepreneurial orientations 1 The four types of entrepreneurial orientations have the following meanings: non-entrepreneur people who do not currently own a business, do not intend to start one and nor would they be willing to invest money in a business; entrepreneurship by behaviour people who currently own a business; entrepreneurship by intention people who do not currently own a business, but they intend to start one in the next two years; entrepreneurship by willingness people who do not own a business, do not intend to start one, but would invest a large sum of money in a business, if they won this money. For further details, see D. Sandu, 1999, Spaţiul social al tranziţiei (Social Environment of the Transition), Polirom, pp

58 Intentional entrepreneur Willing / desirous entrepreneur Man (1 yes, 0 no) Age Years of schooling Material equipment of the household No. of investments in properties, durables in the last 5 years Relational capital Lives in the urban area (1 yes, 0 no) Values risk-taking (1 yes, 0 no) Lives in Transilvania (1 yes, 0 no) Work experience abroad (1 yes, 0 no) Nagelkerke R 2 22% 8% The table shows the Exp(B) coefficients resulted following two logistic regression patterns, having as dependent variables the intention to set up a business and the desire to start a business if the necessary money was available. The coefficients in grey are very different from zero for p=0.05. Conclusions The work migration and the entrepreneurship are life strategies tightly interconnected. Work experience abroad positively associates both with entrepreneurial behaviour, and with the intentions to develop a business. As the migrant accumulates financial, human and relational capital abroad and satisfies his/her basic needs, he/she tends to invest this capital in productive activities, becoming an entrepreneur on his/her own. For an important part of the Romanian migrants, working abroad represents an intermediate strategy before putting into practice the entrepreneurial strategy, fact revealed by the strong connection between the work experience abroad and the entrepreneurial orientation, both on a behaviour level, and on an intentional level. 53

59 Mentalities Dumitru Sandu Types of temporary living abroad According to the temporary living abroad experience (TLA), it is relevant to distinguish between the people who: have direct TLA experience through work (work experience) 7% only through travel (travel experience) 10% have indirect TLA experience intend to leave to work (plan experience) 6% do not have a migration experience live in migrant households (family experience) 14% neither direct, nor indirect (no experience) 63% The five categories of people have entirely different profiles, not only according to their resources and socio-demographic status, but also with respect to some of the mentalities or values that characterise them. with no intention to leave abroad and from household without migrant 63 only somebody else in the household 14 didn't worked but intent to 6 only travelled but didn't woeked abraod 10 worked abroad Figure 18 Types of living abroad experiences Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample At socio-demographic level (Table 17) the young people are those who plan on leaving to work, followed by those who have already worked abroad; men are predominant in the category of the people who have worked (73%) or plan to work abroad (57%), and women are predominant in the group of people who either have no migration experience or only have travel experience; the level of knowledge is maximum at the people who travelled abroad, and minimum at those with no migration experience at personal or family level; the financial status at the people with migration experience is better than at those with no migration experience. Clearly, a better financial status can be both the determining factor and the consequence of working abroad. A survey can not identify the causal direction of that relation. 54

60 Table 17 Living abroad experience according to the socio-demographic status work Living abroad experience through migration travel intention family no experience % men average age, years old average number of finished school years index of material goods in the household average personal income in the last month (mil. lei - ROL) Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample. We marked with +/- the statistically significant relations for p = 0.05 resulted from a multinomial logistic regression pattern where the predictors are the row variables, and the dependent variable is a column variable. The income level was used by logarithmation in the regression pattern. total Table 18 Living abroad experience (TLA) according to the level of education (%) Education level Living abroad vocational, high university/ experience primary secondary school, for foremen college Total through work through visits through intention through family no experience Total Calculation basis, 3,466 people aged 15 to 64 in the 1,400 households of the sample. Reading example: the percentage of people with primary education who only have a TLA experience characterized by visits abroad is 6%. The corresponding percentage for the people with university/college education is 21%. The +/- signs indicate significant relations, which can be positive or negative, for the signification level of 5%. The migration intention figures are probably underestimated because, in this version, which is different from that in the previous table, the intentions of the household members who were not included in the sample were taken from the respondents. Do they think differently? There are many reasons to state that the living abroad experience changes mentalities. The statement refers to, I emphasize, the change of certain mentalities, not of the mentalities. Its effect is not only indirect, by the change in the financial status, but also direct, by multiple interactions with different environments and people, as bearers of different cultures. More than one third of the interviewees (38%) consider that those who have worked abroad think differently. Almost a fifth support the opposite viewpoint, stating that the migration and the work abroad have not changed the Romanians. The indecisive individuals are the most numerous, with a percentage of 41%. The mentality change following the work migration is perceived to the highest degree (60%) by the people who have actually worked abroad (compared to only 38% in sample total). 55

61 This observation is extremely important because it decisively argues in favour of those who claim that the temporary living abroad positively contributes to the change of many mentalities 1. The less migration experience, the lowest the percentage of those who claim that the migration changes the mentality (Table 19). The people who did not work abroad, do not plan to leave the country and have nobody in their family with such experience support the opinion that the migration changes the mentality in a percentage of only 31%. Table 19 Role of the migration experience in formulating opinions on migration: percentage of people who answer yes to the questions In your opinion, the people who have worked abroad through work Living abroad experience through through through visits intention family no experience total...become wealthier get divorced easier help each other abroad help and get help (more) from the people back home think differently Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Reading example: 51% of the people who have worked abroad claim that those who have worked abroad get divorced easier The regularity is also found with territorial data, in the comparison between the Focşani and Alexandria micro-regions (Table 20). At Focşani, 58% of the interviewees in the migrant households claim that the people who have worked abroad think differently, compared to only 37%, the corresponding percentage in Alexandria. In both cases, the respondents are part of migrant households. The difference lies, very likely, in the fact that the people from Vrancea have a much greater migration experience than the people from Teleorman, and a different educational filter, based on a higher average stock of education. Table 20 In your opinion, the people who have worked abroad...? (%) Micro-regions National level Alexandria Focşani no migrants in household with migrants in household...become wealthier get divorced easier help each other abroad help and get help (more) from the people back home think differently Data source: TLA Survey, micro-regions and national sample. Reading example: 58% of the interviewees from the migrant households in the Focşani micro-region believe that the people who have worked abroad think differently. Spheres of life. The idea that work migration changes the mentality is clearly supported by the answers to the question on the importance of the different spheres of life (see appendix 1 Dumitru Sandu (coord.), Viaţa socială în România urbană (Social Life in Urban Romania), Iaşi: POLIROM, 2006, pp.2-54 and Dumitru Sandu Despre explorare în mentalităţile actuale ( About exploration in current mentalities ), in Sociologie Românească, 2/2006. For a different point of view, see Cătălin Zamfir, Este o problemă cu lirismul sociologic? ( Is there a problem with the sociological lyricism?), in Sociologie Românească, 2/

62 with the answers from the questionnaire, according to the temporary migration abroad experience): the people who have worked abroad say that friends are very important in their lives (34% of those who have worked abroad compared to 25% in sample total); spare time is very important to 48% of the former workers abroad, compared to the national average of only 28%; similarly, the individuals with direct work experience abroad think that politics is very important in their lives (14% for those who have worked abroad compared to 5% in sample total) 1. It can be argued that, in fact, the opinion on the role of the migration in changing mentalities is given not by one s own migration experience but by the education, age or financial status of the individual who has worked or travelled abroad. And the objection could be wellgrounded. The issue can be largely cleared up, if we compare groups with different TLA experiences but with the same situation with respect to age, gender, education and financial status. This is exactly what we did by means of some appropriate statistical tools (Table 19). The conclusion fully supports the idea that it is not only the age-gender-education that determines the migrant to think that the work abroad changes his mentalities, but also the experience of work itself. Regardless of their financial status, gender, age or education, the people who have worked abroad claim that the migration changes a man. It is a kind of projective assessment. When speaking about migrants and mentality in general, the former migrant projects in his/her answer beliefs on his/her own transformations. However, not any kind of migration experience leads to such beliefs. If the individual has travelled abroad or if he/she intends to leave there to work, he/she will think in the same as the people who have already worked abroad. The individuals who have only an indirect experience of foreign countries, mediated through family talks with the people who have been abroad, are less convinced that the migration changes one s values. The belief that TLA plays a part in changing mentalities is more supported by educated people who also have an above average financial status, regardless of their personal migration experience. Tolerance. We performed similar analysis 2 to those above-mentioned in order to see whether the migration experience affects the degree of tolerance. It resulted that working abroad has no significant effects on ethnical tolerance. There is only a specific effect of the noneconomic migration abroad: the people who have had such experiences tend to be more tolerant towards the Magyars. Also, TLA does not significantly affect religious tolerance. There is only one kind of anticipatory socialization, through the intention to leave to work abroad, which seems to favour an increased religious tolerance (towards Jehovah s Witnesses) 3. Work. The people who have worked abroad are much more convinced than the rest of the interviewees of the fact that work is important in one s life: 61% of the former workers abroad consider that work is very important in their life, compared to the average of 48% in sample total. Is this an effect of the foreign experience or can we claim that the people who went abroad to work already had the work motivation anyway? It seems to be also a specific effect of working abroad. A first reason lies in the fact that a lower percentage of people who only have the intention of going to work abroad claim that work is very important to them, 1 For all four fields work, friendship, spare time and politics the differences are statistically significant between the people who have worked abroad and the percentages in sample total, at level p = Family life is very important to 87% of the people who have worked abroad. The percentage is identical in sample total for the opinion on that aspect. 2 Using the multinomial logistic regression with predictors identical to those in Table A9 Predictors of the opinion the people who have worked abroad think differently! Table A9 and taking as dependent variables some indicators of tolerance towards the Jews, the Romany, the Magyars, the Arabs and the Jehovah s Witnesses. 3 It is possible that a better indication of the regression pattern, operating with several predictors, cancel the effect of the TLA on the tolerance towards the Jehovah s Witnesses. 57

63 namely 54%. A second reason is provided by the results of the analysis through methods that enable the elimination of the effect given by associated factors, such as age, financial status, education or gender. The result is the same the people who have worked abroad affirm much more than the others the importance of work in their lives. The foreign experience for and through work also leads to the increase in the interest that people take in their spare time (48% compared to an average of 28% in the sample total) 1. Success in life is associated by the people who want to leave to work abroad in particular to the fact of having relations (15% compared to 8%, which is the corresponding percentage in the sample total). The individuals with no direct TLA experience, but who live within migrant families consider risk-taking, in particular, as a solution to succeed in life (6% compared to 3% in the sample total). The individuals with no migration experience, coming from families that have had no migrants, are particularly reluctant to the idea of risk-taking as necessary element to succeed in life. For the individuals who have worked abroad, the key to success is work, but not any kind of work: that performed abroad. This is yet another side of the impact that working abroad has on mentalities 2. Spatial identities. Working abroad favours a detachment from one s own locality: only 29% of the people who have worked abroad say that they are very attached to the town or village they live in, compared to 37%, which is the corresponding percentage in the sample total. Is this attitude an effect of the social composition of the people who have worked abroad or even an effect of the migration experience? If we compared a group of work migrants and a group with no such experience, but both with the same social composition (age, gender, education and residential environment), then we would notice that still the people with work experience abroad are less attached to their locality 3. This relation is natural if we take into consideration the fact that economic migration occurs for community-family dissatisfaction reasons (dissatisfaction with the chances of income, jobs etc.) and, in addition, the aspirations level of the people who have also seen foreign countries is higher than that of the non-migrants. In exchange, the work migrants have a much higher level of very strong attachment to Europe (28%), compared to the average in the sample total, given by the percentage of 20%. Voting intention. For the people who have worked abroad there is no specific, wellstructured voting orientation in connection with the political parties. In exchange, with regard to electing the country s president, the options seem to be a little more structured. The vote for Traian Băsescu is the majority vote of the work migrants and of the non-migrants. As for the rest, the data are unstable because the total number of people with work experience abroad is quite small for the requirements of a detailed statistical analysis at national level. In exchange, the regional data enable detailing, although it only refers to households with migration experience. Traian Băsescu is preferred both in Teleorman and in Vrancea (Table 21), however, considerably more in Vrancea compared to Teleorman. In Alexandria, the micro-region chosen in Teleorman, the options vary more. There are much higher percentages than in the Focşani micro-region with respect to the options for C.V. Tudor, Becali and Năstase. The difference between the vote in Teleorman and that in Vrancea is also related to the political orientations specific to the migrants at the predominant destinations for the two areas, Spain for the people of Teleorman, and Italy for the people of Vrancea. Table 21 Voting intention for the president, on micro-regions (%) Alexandria Focşani Traian Băsescu 15 28* C.V.Tudor 8* 2 George Becali 7* 3 Adrian Năstase 4* 1 1 The entire paragraph is based on the results of the multinomial logistic analysis. 2 The pairs of percentages mentioned in this paragraph differ widely for p = The reasons are based on the results of an ordinal regression pattern where the dependent variable is the type of migration experience 58

64 Mircea Geoană 3 2 Others 2 2 Indecisive Data source: TLA Survey, micro-region sample departures to work. * Significant positive associations determined by adjusted standardized residuals. Is this good or bad that they leave? In order to observe how working abroad is seen by the public eye, we asked the people if Is this good or bad that some people leave to work abroad? The perception is dominantly positive. More than 50% of the adult individuals consider that this is good, and more than 20% consider that this is both good and bad (Figure 19). Of course, the people who are the most thrilled with migration are those who intend to leave (79%) and those who have already worked abroad (73%). In the families where there is neither experience nor intention to migrate, the assessment is more reserved. total sample without migration experience travelled abroad household with migrants worked abroad it's good it's bad both good and bad NA intention % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Figure 19 Do you believe that it is good or bad that some people leave to work abroad? Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample Reading example: 73% of the individuals who have worked abroad consider that it is good that some people leave to work abroad The main advantages of working abroad are those of financial-material nature, and the disadvantages are especially perceived in connection with family problems: Motives for this is better % Motives for this is worse % Financial gain 70.7 They are far away from family/ home 33.0 Higher quality living conditions 7.8 Family separation 8.2 Improvement of the family s financial status 1.4 No longer see to children s education 1.6 Guarantee of a better future 0.7 Suffering of those who stay in the country 1.4 Better jobs 0.4 They are not well paid here 5.6 More opportunities 0.4 They are badly treated by foreigners 4.4 They have no jobs in Romania 2.8 They run risks 4.0 They bring money/ foreign currency into the country 2.7 Hard working conditions 2.4 Change of mentality 1.4 They work a lot 1.2 Gaining experience 1.2 Some don t get by 0.8 Broadening their knowledge 0.8 Work is inadequately paid 0.6 DK / NR 9.7 They don t work to their level of professional training There are no jobs in Romania 5.6 Romania remains with no labour force

65 Disadvantages for Romania 3.2 There are opportunities in Romania, too 2.0 High-quality people leave the country 0.8 DK / NR Nevertheless, there are also perceived advantages related to the change of mentality, the broadening of one s knowledge, the improvement in experience. The individuals who have worked abroad think differently, state 38% of the interviewees (Figure 20). Translator s note: DK = don t know...think differently get divorced easier help each other abroad help and get help (more) from the people back home become wealthier % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% YES NO NA Figure 20 In your opinion, the people who have worked abroad...? Data source: TLA Survey, basic sample This differently is mainly positive. The people with work experience abroad are perceived as being more dynamic, having a work ethics close to that from the West, being more optimistic, more confident in their own strengths. The change is described by/ in terms of: % Change of mentality 11 Become more intelligent 1 Thinking for the better / Positive 11 Become more civilized 1 Think freely / open 8 Become more pretentious / demanding 1 Wider/ changed perspective on life 7 Modern thinking 1 Change of mentality on work 3 Become more inventive / creative 1 Think like Westerns 3 Become more brave 1 Think realistically 3 Become more ambitious 1 Become optimistic 3 Think with no more prejudices 0 Develop entrepreneurial spirit 2 Materialistic thinking 9 Become more responsible / serious 2 Become more selfish 3 Become more relaxed 2 Become conceited / arrogant 2 Become more practical / organized 2 Become strangers / cold 1 Become more confident in their own strengths 2 Negative thinking 1 Change of mentality on money 1 Become snob 0 Constructive thinking 1 Become pessimistic 0 DK / NR Translator s note: DK = don t know 60

66 The social norm seems to state that, if you have worked abroad, the money should be used, first of all, to build or purchase a house, second of all, to set up a business and, thirdly, to provide a better living for your family: On what do you believe that a person returning from work abroad should spend his/her money? % House construction/ purchase 28 Setting up a business 19 Satisfy family needs / provide better living 12 Car purchase 4 Real estate investments 4 Home renovation / modernization 3 Purchase of durables 2 Provide for the future of his/her children 1 Others 5 I don t know what advice to give/nr Setting up a business before purchasing a car or investing in real estate seems to be a change in the hierarchy of preferences for spending the money from migration. The available data show that the idea to use the money from migration in order to set up a business is of maximum intensity at the individuals who intend to leave to work abroad (33%) and to those who have travelled abroad (27%) 32. The configuration of the survey data suggests the hypothesis that the new work migration abroad, identifiable at the level of the potential departures, could be more closely related to the intention to set up a business with the money from migration, than it was in the previous waves. The grounds for this hypothesis lie in the much higher percentage of desire to invest the money from migration in business, at the potential migrants compared to the former migrants (33% at the potential migrants compared to 23% at the former workers abroad). Conclusions Opinions on migration. More than 50% of the interviewees state that work migration is good. The social ideology is clearly in favour of working abroad. The advantages of working abroad perceived are those related to the improvement in the financial status of the migrants, but also to the change of their mentality for the better. The disadvantages are especially related to the occurrence of some family problems associated with an increased chance of divorce or with problems concerning the raising of the children. Observe that the migrants themselves are those who consider that they become more dynamic, more modern in their way of thinking, following the migration experience. The dominant option still remains that of using the money from migration in order to build or purchase houses. However, the new migration wave, identifiable at the level of the potential migrants, seems to be strongly orientated towards using the money from migration in order to start a business. In the series of changes of mentality, it is worth mentioning that the work, friends, spare time and politics are much more important in the mentality of the individuals who have worked abroad, compared to the situation of the national average. Mentalities. Values that serve as basis for the different types of choices or attitudes, they are significantly changed by the migration experience. 31 Reporting is done on the total of the three possible choices. 32 Reporting is done on the first choice. 61

67 The best judge of the change in mentalities by TLA are the migrants themselves. From the total number of work migrants, 60% agree with the statement that the people who have worked abroad think differently, compared to only 38%, which is the corresponding percentage in the sample total. Although the question is not about changes in their own way of thinking, the answer can be considered to be a projective one, with the formulation of the opinion according to their personal experience. Almost 60% of the individuals who have worked abroad consider work to be very important to them. The percentage is much higher than that recorded from the answers to the same question, at national level (48%). Similarly, the individuals who have migrated for work attached greater importance to their spare time and to politics than those who do not have this experience. Of course, there are entire mentality areas that remain unchanged. The best example is that related to ethnical tolerance. Religious tolerance seems to go through a certain expansion of its sphere due to the migration. In communities, such as those in Teleorman, with massive migration to Spain, there also exists a unique characteristic of the political orientation, with stronger options for C.V. Tudor and Becali than in micro-regions such as Vrancea, which has Italy as dominant destination. Temporary living abroad also contributes to the restructuring of spatial attachment links. The former workers abroad have higher levels of aspirations in connection with community life, and they tend to be less attached to their own locality. Moreover, by means of their new relations, in a transnational life style, they also get attached to the communities where they worked. In exchange, they also have a specific greater attachment to Europe than in the case of the individuals who did not have work experience abroad. 62

68 Family relations Alexandru Toth, Georgiana Toth In most definitions, the nuclear family implies that the individuals who form it must live together. The departure, even temporary, of an individual to work abroad implicitly represents the restructuring of the functions that the other individuals in the family of that individual fulfil. If working abroad can be considered a strategy of improvement in the economic function at family level and can lead to an improvement in the living conditions of those who stayed back home, what happens then with the other parts that the migrant used to play within the household? The parts related to affectivity, sexuality, but also the educational and control functions that the migrant used to fulfil before leaving the household, remain unfulfilled or are assumed by somebody else who stayed back home. Thus, it is expected that some dysfunctions occur within the family, beginning, for example, with the occurrence of some smaller or greater dissensions in the couple or between the members who stayed back home, and leading to an inadequate mental and physical development of a child whose parent/parents are abroad, or even to divorce. Also, it is expected that the temporary absence from the family affect the migrant, due to the fact that a part of his/her needs that his/her family used to satisfy, remain unsatisfied. Survey data reveals that, even at the level of common sense, the main negative consequences of the temporary work migration are those which have impact on the family. Almost half (46%) of the people who think that it is bad that people leave to work abroad support their opinion with statements related to the family life. Being apart from the family, which is the equivalent to a certain degree of deprivation with respect to the affective needs, is the most frequently mentioned negative consequence of the departure to work abroad (35%). In the same category of mentions, we can also add the statement about family separation (9% of the negative consequences mentioned) and the suffering of those who stay back home (1%). It is worth mentioning that the distribution of the opinions on these negative consequences related to the family are not different in the case of people in households with migration experience, from those in other households. Table 3 Opinions on why it is bad that some people leave to work abroad (question with multiple answer) % of those who answered that it is bad,, that it is good, and that it is both good and bad that people leave to work abroad (National sample, N=484) 63 Household with experience abroad non-migrant household are far away from family/ home Family separation There are no jobs in Romania They are not well paid here They are badly treated by foreigners Romania remains with no labour force They run risks Disadvantages for Romania Hard working conditions There are opportunities in Romania, too No longer see to children s education Suffering of those who stay in the country The work a lot Others DK / NR Total

69 The question that we intend to answer in this chapter is to what extent work experience abroad affects the way in which the members of a family get on together, in general, and the partners in a couple, in particular. Most of the individuals in households with members who have been gone abroad do not feel any change related to the children or family relations. However, there are differences between the various categories of respondents. Thus, we notice that the individuals with work experience abroad state, in a higher percentage than the others, that the experience abroad generated certain changes with respect to family relations and children (see table 2). On the other hand, the regional survey data reveal significant differences between the migrant households in Teleorman and in Vrancea, with regard to the perception on the impact of the foreign experience on their family. In the case of the households in Vrancea, the percentage of people who say that the foreign experience has brought changes in their family is higher than in the case of the households in Teleorman. The explanation of this difference is found, most likely, not in the cultural differences between the two regions, but in the effects of economic nature that work migration has generated at the level of the households in the two counties. The data of the two surveys, regarding the investments in the last 5 years 33, shows a much greater improvement in the living conditions, in the case of the migrant households in Vrancea, than in the case of those in Teleorman. Practically, the assessments about the changes in the family are perceived, in the case of the migrant households, by the changes occurred in their living conditions. Table 4 Percentage of people who mention changes in the family determined by the foreign experience (%) The fact that someone in your household has been abroad for a while, has brought for you changes in...children...family relations National sample Type of foreign experience Work Travel 8 11 Intention 5 14 Migrant household Regional samples Teleorman Vrancea What was yet the meaning of the changes in family perceived by the migrants? The individuals who have worked abroad and who feel that their family relations have changed following this experience, assess these changes as positive ones. The percentage of work migrants who feel a worsening of their relations with their life partner or with the children is very low, both at the level of the national sample, and at that of the regional samples (table 3) 33 A few comparative data on the investments in the last 5 years, in the case of the households in the 2 counties: purchase of household appliances: VN - 73%, TR 41%, car purchase: VN 30%, TR 14%, house building: VN 23%, TR 7%. Also, 41% of the respondents from Vrancea consider that their current life is better than it used to be a few years ago, compared to only 27% in the case of those from Teleorman. 64

70 Table 5 Assessment of the changes in family relations din perspective work migrant % of the respondents who have worked abroad and have a life partner or children. How have your relations with... changed? Your life partner Your children Other close relatives for for for for for for the in no the the in no the the in no the better way worse better way worse better way worse National sample Teleorman Vrancea Note: The calculation bases vary according to the individuals who have a life partner, children. Reading examples: 30% of the individuals with work experience abroad, at national level, consider that their relations with their life partners have changed for the better, 40% of the work migrants in Vrancea, who have children assess that their relations with the children have bettered. Is the evolution of family relations in the last few years similar in the case of migrant and non-migrant households? Most respondents, regardless of their migration experience, do not feel an improvement or a worsening in the understanding in their family. The national survey data, but also the regional survey data, does not indicate important differences regarding the understanding in the family, between the two types of households, but there is a difference in the case of migrant households from Vrancea, compared to those from Teleorman or those in the national sample. The migrants from the Vrancea region assess, in a slightly greater number, that the understanding in their family has recorded an evolution for the better in the last few years (24% compared to 14% in Teleorman, and 18% of the migrant households at national level). Table 6 Evolution perceived of the understanding within the family in the last few years (%) How do you think that the understanding within the family currently is compared to a few years ago? Better Same Worse DK/NR Total National sample Type of foreign experience Work Travel Intention Migrant household Non-migrant household Regional samples Teleorman Vrancea Narrowing the range of family relations only to the level of the couple, the data indicates the fact that the individuals with work experience consider, in a slightly higher percentage, that they do not get on too well or not at all with their life partner, compared to the other categories of respondents: 11% compared to 3%, in the case of non-migrant households (Table 5). The same situation is also revealed by the distribution of the interviewees answers regarding the frequency of occurrence of issues within the couple. 19% of the individual with work experience admit that there often are issues within the couple, while, at national level, the percentage of the individuals who admit this is only 9%. At the level of the migrant households in Vrancea and Teleorman, only 6-7% of the respondents state that there often are issues within their couple (Table 6), but this is very likely caused by the fact that not all the respondents from these families have worked abroad. 65

71 In general, how do you assess the way in which you get on with your spouse / life partner? (%) Table 7 Not well at Very well Well Not too well NR Total all National sample Type of foreign experience Work Travel Intention Migrant household Non-migrant household Regional samples Teleorman Vrancea Table 1. Frequency of occurrence of issues in the life of the couple (%) Sometimes problems occur in the life of a couple. In your couple, how often do these problems occur? Never, very seldom Seldom Often Very often DK/NR Total National sample Type of foreign experience Work Travel Intention Migrant household Non-migrant household Regional samples Teleorman Vrancea What are the main sources of the problems that occur in the life of a couple? Regardless of the foreign experience, the lack of money is the main source of conflicts within a couple. The migrants in Vrancea and the individuals with foreign experience through travels mention, in a much lower percentage, money as the source of the problems in a couple, fact which represents an indicator for the better financial status of these households. Children s behaviour, as well as the relation with the parents or parents-in-law and the alcohol consumption are secondary sources of conflicts occurring within a couple, in Romania. The neglect of the family and being apart from the family are secondary sources of couple problems, which are specific, in particular, to the group of the individuals with work experience abroad, these causes being mentioned by approximately 10% of them. Table 9 Source of the issues occurred in the life of the couple (%) What is the main cause of these issues? (2 answers, combined) Total Work Travel Intention Nonmigrant Migrant househ. househ. TR VN Lack of money Children behaviour Parents/parents-in-law Alcohol consumption Neglect of the family by one of the partners

72 One of the partners does not bring money into the house Distance Violence Infidelity Others NR Does the temporary departure to work abroad affect the life of a couple in terms of understanding between the partners? The mere analysis of the distribution of the answers does not take us to a unequivocal answer. However, analysing the relations between several factors that could affect the good understanding in a couple, the answer to this question becomes more substantial. The regression analysis shows that: the main factor that directly affects the understanding between the partners of a couple is the financial status. A good financial status determines a good understanding in a couple the work experience abroad negatively affects the understanding between the partners. The fact that one of the partners has worked/works abroad reduces the degree of understanding with the other individual of the couple women tend to assess more negatively the understanding with the life partner living in an urban area negatively affects the understanding within a couple the existence of a child in the household also negatively affects the understanding between the life partners. Table 10 Predictors of good understanding in the life of a couple 34 Predictors Beta Is a woman Lives in urban area Household with child under Respondent has worked abroad Years of schooling respondent Size of the household Material equipment R 2 =0.06 The table shows the results of a linear regression analysis, with couple understanding as dependent variable. All coefficients marked with grey are significantly different from zero for p = The final pattern was obtained through the backward elimination method. Table 11 Average values of the indicator of couple understanding (Sub)Sample Average Foreign experience through... Work -36 Travel -1 Intention 2 Migrant household -10 Non-migrant household 6 Type of family Nuclear family The understanding in a couple is an indicator (type factorial score) obtained from the questions In general, how do you assess the way in which you get on with your spouse / life partner? and In your couple, how often do these problems occur?. The factorial score obtained was multiplied by -100 for direct scaling and facilitation of the results reading. 67

73 Enlarged nuclear family -10 National total 0 As shown in Table 9, the work experience abroad associates with significantly lower values of the indicator of couple understanding. Even though, from the regression analysis, the size of the household did not come out as a relevant predictor for couple understanding, this size seems to vary according to the type of family. The couples within nuclear families have a significantly higher degree of understanding than those within polynuclear families (enlarged nuclear families, meaning that more than one generation live in the same household). At the same time, it can be observed that the migrant households and the individuals with work experience abroad significantly associate with enlarged nuclear families. 68% of the individuals in households with migration experience live in enlarged families (Table 10). The fact that several generations live under the same roof often associates with the occurrence of conflicts between the members of that household, and the temporary departure to work abroad of one of its members may even aggravate these conflicts. 68

74 Table 12 Foreign experience according to the type of family (%) Type of family Single people / old Nuclear Enlarged another people families families nuclear families situation Total National sample Type of foreign experience Work 7 (-) (+) Travel Intention 7 (-) 46 (+) Migrant household 2 (-) (+) Non-migrant household 29 (+) (-) Note: The +/- signs from the grey cells denote the association/rejection relation between the characteristic feature on the column and that on the row, resulted following the analysis based on adjusted standardized residuals. In conclusion, based on the analysis presented, we can affirm that: the actual influence of the departures to work abroad on family relations is quite low, even though in terms of common sense, being apart from the family represents the main negative aspect of the migration. Migrants tend to think that the foreign experience has a positive influence on family relations and on the understanding with the life partner, as the money earned from working abroad contributes to an improvement in the quality of life, in the migrant households, and implicitly to an improvement in the relations within the family. The departure to work abroad affects, in some cases, the understanding in the migrant s relationship with his/her life partner. The economic status of a household is the main determining factor of the way in which its members get on. As the lack of money is the main source of conflict inside a family, the money earned from working abroad contributes to the reduction of the potential of conflict between its members. 69

75 Community aspects Ioana-Alexandra Mihai The temporary work migration is a phenomenon, which effects and causes are particularly discussed at national level: its main cause is identified as the lack of sufficiently attractive jobs and, if we are referring to its effects, we particularly speak about economic effects at macroeconomic level and about social effects at family level. An aspect of migration that is less often mentioned in the public discourse on migration is its community aspect. What part do community factors play in the migration? What are the important factors? What effects does migration have at community level in the communities of origin and also in the host communities? We spoke about the dissatisfaction with the life that people have in the country, which pushes them towards foreign countries. This dissatisfaction, or inadequacy of the conditions to people s needs, is found, first of all, at community level, but this would rather explain a potential flow of internal migration, for this reason it can be considered that the rejection factors are rather found at macroeconomic level. However, there is a factor of the migration which is clearly related to the local community: the relationships that are built at this level. For the qualitative and the quantitative data, it results that the main resource of assistance for the departures abroad is represented by people from the same locality, either relatives or acquaintances (see Table 8, chapter Exploring Europe ). The local community thus forms in the environment in which the people have access to information and useful relations regarding the migration, particularly because the latter has become common fact within the communities that have a certain migratory experience. Were many people from here gone to Spain? When we left [in 2002], many people had already gone, I think that we were among the last... Now everybody is in Spain. (L.S., woman, aged 36, migrant in Spain, interview in Nenciuleşti) Community participation What are the implications of migration at community level? If people leave, at least temporarily, their community, does this mean that they also break away from it socially? The quantitative data show that migrants are less attached to the community they come from (see chapter Exploring Europe... ). However, from the interviews with migrants in Spain, it results a desire, sometimes expressed as a plan, other times as a possibility that they do not want to exclude: the desire to return to the country. It translates into investments, in houses built or purchased in the country, often right in the community of origin. Nevertheless, the sama people who invest in a house in Romania are those who buy houses in the country of destination (sometimes the order is exactly the reverse: first, they buy a house in the country of destination and only then one in Romania). However, what we must remember is that, at least on the declarative level, not only is the possibility to return not excluded, but it is actually seen as probable. In the case of these statements, it is hard to differentiate between the attachment to the local community and the attachment to the country or that to the family left back home. I don t want to remain there, but as long as I think that it is good for me there, I will stay... I shall not be able to resist there, it is better in your house, at home, in your country... (M.O., woman, aged 33, migrant in Spain, interview in Nenciuleşti) When I got married, I had to make a decision: should I marry a foreigner or a Romanian?... Because if one of us wants to return, it is easier this way, it s your country, it s your language... (D.A., woman, aged 30, settled in Spain since 1995, interview in San Fernando de Henares, Madrid) 70

76 If migrants are less attached to the local community, what can we say about their community participation? Are they more active migrants or quite the contrary? The difference between the individuals who have been or are gone to work and the rest of the population can not be statistically analysed, except for the data from the regional research, considering that at this level we have a sufficiently large number of cases (39% of the respondents to the questionnaire given at regional level have been gone to work abroad, compared to only 7%, in the case of the national sample); this difference is shown in the Appendix, Table 13. We notice that the community participation of the individuals who have been gone to work is significantly lower compared to that found at the level of the entire sample. An explanation of the lack of participation is pragmatic and refers to the absence of those individuals from the community. However, it is interesting to observe that migrants participate less although we are looking at the contributions in work and in money, in general (we might think that they can compensate for their absence from the community, and therefore their incapability to contribute by work, by means of contributions in money, a resource that they generally have). Social capital The social networks are an important resource of the individuals who leave to work abroad. In our qualitative research, we seldom met people who arrived abroad without having someone there. This observation is also supported by the quantitative data, which shows that more than half the number of migrants (58% of the migrants included on the migration form given at national level) received help from another individual when they left the country for the first time. In the category of the useful relations for migrants, in first place there are the relatives from the same locality, and in second the friends, also from the same locality. The information seems contradictory: on the one hand, Romanians arrive abroad with the help of the connections they have, in a sort of pyramid-like development of the phenomenon, and on the other hand, a very common type of discourse among the migrants is that about Romanians who do not help each other and about the relations (both family and friendship ones) destroyed abroad. We were able to observe an example of such contradiction when we spent almost an entire day with a young couple (aged 26, respectively 32) from Nenciuleşti, who had been in Spain for three years. On the one hand, they described the way the relations between them and the friends or relatives, who were also in Spain, had cooled, on the other hand, we had the chance to witness unexpected visits from some acquaintances or friends, as well as some chance meetings with Romanians, who lived in the same area, and from all these it resulted, however, that their social life was far from being poor. A probable source of this contradiction is found in the difference between the spare time that they used to have when they were still in the country, and the spare time that the people working abroad had. In order to earn incomes that would allow them to have a quality of life, which should justify the expenses incurred by being away from home, the Romanians in Spain have a work schedule that does not allow them to spend too much time with friends. In general, they prefer to use the little spare time they have to rest. In these conditions, the relations between people become functional, for helping each other and for exchanging information, rather than spending spare time together. If you get home at ten, you wash up and you go to sleep. How can you go out? As the next day, you wake up at six. (man, aged 32, migrant Spain, interview in Madrid) Another factor is the discrepancy between the expectations that newly arrived Romanians have from the people who have promised to help them, and the actual help that they receive from these people. On the one hand, old migrants had suffered many hardships until they managed to have a relatively stable status, and they do not accept to spend too much of their 71

77 time, social capital and money resources (the first are scarce, and the last two have been obtained with great efforts) in order to help the newcomers. It s one thing to be the Romanian emigrant who left long ago, with much greater costs...has more years behind, is more stable economically. You can not possibly skip certain stages, the first is that of learning the language, which lasts about a year or so (migrant in Spain, interview in Getafe, Madrid) I came to a cousin of mine who had been here long... And did they help you?... They help you, but they forget how it also was for them in the beginning (AP, woman, aged 28, migrant in Spain since 2003, interview in Madrid) A circumstance with high potential to generate conflicts results from cohabitation. The apartments are often sublet by the leasehold tenants, thus there are situations when as much as 10 people live in a 3-room apartment. Besides the inevitable consequences that this fact has on the life of the couple, conflicts arise between couples, respectively families, generated by the need to share certain common utilities, such as the bathroom, the kitchen, the household appliances or the terrace where the clothes are hung to dry, but also by the different habits of each individual. How this use of social networks for migration is reflected in people s overall social relations? Are the families of the people who migrate richer in relational capital than the others? The data of the national quantitative research shows that the people who come from families with foreign experience have a higher relational capital compared to the others. Yet, are these social networks related to migration? If we compare the people, who come from families in which at least one individual has been or is gone to work abroad, to the rest of the sample, we notice that here there are significant differences statistically, only with regard to the relations with people abroad and with people from whom the subject could borrow money (see Table 14). The quality of these relations (assessed by how much the subject considers that he/she can rely on them) does not vary significantly unless in the case of those with people abroad. Association in the country of destination It is already a known fact that, in Spain, there is a large number of Romanians (estimated to approximately 500, ,000), and that they are not uniformly scattered throughout the whole country. They are concentrated in certain areas, one of these areas being the Autonomous Community of Madrid. Here, the Romanians live especially in the localities outside Madrid, on the Henares corridor (the town of Coslada is the most renowned for its high concentration of Romanians: out of 70,000 inhabitants, 13,000 are Romanians), but also in the southern part of the capital. The Romanians live in the same areas, go to the same shops, use the same means of public transportation, go to the same churches (if any), meet in all these places, spend spare time together (even though there is less spare time than in the country). In the localities where the concentration of Romanians is high, it is as surprising to hear a conversation in Romanian in the street, as it is to hear people speaking Spanish. In these conditions, we can consider justified the discourse on Romanian communities. If so, then there should be identified ways of organization for these communities. The most visible organization of the Romanians is around the churches. The church is not only a place where people come to pray or to take part in religious services. It is, at the same time, a meeting place, a place where people can socialize and very important to the people gone to work abroad exchange information. The Adventist community in Coslada mobilized to bring a pastor from the country even since The Romanian orthodox church in Madrid had already functioned, long before the post- December 1989 migrant wave. However, the communities of the Romanians who lived around Madrid organized to create new parishes in the localities where they lived. In this 72

78 approach, they met with resistance from Mitropolia in Paris, institution to which any Romanian orthodox parish in Spain would be subordinated, fact which proved even clearer the way in which those communities managed to get organized. In the last few years, there is also a tendency towards formal association, reflected in a relatively large number of associations. Thus, in the localities where many Romanians live, there are even up to 4-5 associations. In 2005, there was set up a federation of the Romanian associations in Spain FEDROM, to which 14 associations from all around Spain are affiliated. One of the activities of the federation is to support the creation of associations wherever the Romanians live. The associations are financed in particular by the Spanish authorities (at the level of locality or autonomous community). We may classify their activities into the following types: Cultural and sports activities and trips in which there are involved either just Romanians, or Romanians and people of other nationalities The organization of events such as concerts, exhibits, fares The organization of Spanish classes The organization of Romanian classes for the migrants children (it is a type of activity that several associations intend to have, but which, at the time of the research was just in the project stage) The establishment of Romanian orthodox parishes Provision of information Job intermediation Legal consultation Translations of documents The last two activities are often services for which the individual who goes to the association must pay, therefore the associations are seen with distrust. In addition, even those which do not provide such paid services are very little known, and the general impression is that Romanians are not associating. What do you do? Well, the first thing that I have to do now is to advertise as much as possible, so that people find out about me. (association president, interview in Madrid) Besides this, there is competition between the associations, the people managing them make negative statements about or even accusations against the others. The Romanians are not associating. They say that there are many associations, but in fact they are created just for one project. They are just delinquents, two or three people together with their wives, brothers, children, who take money for a single project (association president, interview in Madrid) Conclusions Let s summarize, drawing the main conclusions from the facts described in this chapter: Migrants are less involved in solving the problems of the community of origin Migration uses especially social networks at the level of the community of affiliation Romanians relations abroad change, on the one hand, the frequency of the interactions between people decreases, on the other hand, old relations are broken off and new relations are born The associative phenomenon among Romanians in Spain is still in an incipient stage, with many, very small associations, with reduced activity, which compete against each other 73

79 Appendix Table 13 Participation experience (percentage of people who answered yes, compared to the number of valid cases; the fields where there are significant differences from the rest of the sample are marked) National sample total Someone in the household has foreign experience (national) Someone in household has been gone to work abroad (national) Regional sample total Subject was gone to work abroad (regional) Has voluntarily contributed with work or money to solving some local problems Has participated in any public meeting on community/block of flats problems Has informed the authorities about common issues that should be solved Has donated to the church Has helped someone in need Table 14 Useful relations (percentage of people who answered yes, compared to the number of valid cases; the fields where there are significant differences from the rest of the sample are marked) National sample total Someone in the household has foreign experience (national) Someone in household has been gone to work abroad (national) Regional sample total Subject was gone to work abroad (regional) Do you have relations on whom you can count on in case of illness for consultation, treatment, surgical procedure in court, notary public, lawyer in the town hall in the police in getting a job in the business world in county institutions abroad, through relatives settled there abroad, through acquaintances to lend you a large sum of money

80 Medium-term plans of the Romanians (two to three years) Delia Bobîrsc The plans for the future, our intentions to set goals for a shorter or longer period of time, represent a component of motivation nature in everyday life. But the desire alone to reach certain pre-determined goals is not enough in order to make plans. The daily life provides a first conditioning of the plans we make, namely that of assessing our needs, establishing their hierarchy and setting priorities among certain relevant aspects, to which we give special meaning, aspects of intrinsic or symbolic value. From this point of view, the plans represent both the personal dimension, of satisfying certain needs, and the social dimension, of publicly expressing our own personality. Another level of conditioning derives from the experience accumulated throughout our life, and it is represented by the adaptation of our goals to the existing resources or to the resources that we consider accessible and, therefore, we shall be able to attract in the intended time period. Without evaluating these resources, the goals become much harder to achieve and, therefore, the plans for the future would be nothing but mere verbalizations of certain desires. By comparison to these instructions, we have attempted to outline the Romanians intentions for the future, using the quantitative data collected at national level, based on a questionnaire, and the qualitative data (interviews taken in Năneşti, Vrancea). The question For the next two-three years, you plan...? had 13 answer variants, considered to represent main and relevant targets/goals that the Romanians set, at present (Figure 1), to each of these, the respondents could answer yes or no. to move to another locality-commune to move in a smaller suite to move of another locality-city to buy a plot of land to start a business to build a house to continue their education to move in a better house to change your lifestyle to spend a holiday abroad to look for a job /another job to increase your income by working overtime to improve the house/suite where you live Figure 1 Main plans for the future of the Romanians derived from the answers to the question For the next two-three years, you plan...? The figures in the chart indicate the percentage of subjects who answered that they had a plan related to that aspect. The choices are not exclusive, the same person may have several plans. The data collected indicates the fact that the first priority of the Romanians is aimed at improving their living conditions, the investment in the house or apartment where they stay/live. This intention characterizes to a greater extent the young people and adults from Muntenia and Transilvania. The diversification of the investment plans represents a common strategy, in particular in the case of the families that have at least one member gone to work abroad or in the case of the individuals who intend to migrate. Building a new house or moving into a better house, together with the intention to purchase lands or opening a business are some of the current investment practices of the Romanian migrants. The 75

81 intention to increase the incomes by working overtime or by looking for a new/another job comes first in the plans of the people who intend to migrate in the near future (the next two years). This intention is mainly observed in men, young people and adults, inhabitants of Crişana and Maramureş. Most changes in the commune are made with money brought from abroad. Most people invest in houses. The houses are much more modern than before, and looking at them and having the idea from abroad, it can be seen that they have brought the idea from abroad, that they have come with another mentality. The houses are built higher, wells are being dug for running water, bathrooms are built into the houses. (businessman, Năneşti) Besides the analysis of these investment strategies, we were also interested in the plans regarding the accumulation of educational capital and the investments in leisure activities. Thus, the townspeople who have travelled abroad before want more to spend their holidays outside the country. And the orientation towards continuation of studies is mainly observed in young people, in people with higher education, who wish to migrate or who already have migration experience through travels outside the country. A small part of the Romanians (also) intend to have a entrepreneurial career, to set up a business. Who are those who have such plans? A profile of the Romanian entrepreneur can be outlined as follows: man, aged 18 to 29, high school and higher education, with no income or with an income that exceeds 6 million lei (ROL) per month, with medium and higher level occupations, from the urban area, with living abroad experience (either for work, or for tourism) or with the intention to migrate. Another interesting aspect is considered to be the business fields that attract the entrepreneurs. The development of an agricultural farm seems to be a profitable business for 3% of the people who plan, in the next two years, to invest in a business, while 8% would orientate towards a business that does not target the agriculture. From the discussions with Romanian migrants, we noticed that they too no longer want to revitalize the agricultural activities, their investments being mainly orientated towards the service provision area, the real estate field, the purchase of houses and lands (from the people who have worked abroad and would start their own business, 7% would develop an agricultural farm, and 24% would start a non-agricultural business). Table 1 Option to set up a business according to the migration abroad experience Within the next 2 years, do Nonmigrant Migrant you or someone else in your Work Travel Intention household family intend...? household Total To develop an agricultural farm / facility 7% 5% 6% 4% 2% 3% To start your own firm/business 24% 12% 18% 10% 4% 8% The data in the table represents the percentage of individuals who answered Yes With regard to the obstacles in the path of the entrepreneurial road, many of the interviewees declared that they could not set up a business either for lack of financial capital, or lack of experience or interest. Apart from these obstacles, there are others, some of the subjects considering that business in Romania is risky due to the bureaucracy and the high level of corruption. In our research, we identified former migrants who started a transport firm upon their return from Italy. A small part of the migrants returned home invested the money earned in construction companies. An example of investment in a small business of manufacturing prefabricated blocks for constructions is in Năneşti village, from the county of Vrancea. A former migrant, with a great work experience in Italy (over 10 years), upon his return to the country, decided to invest in a business, in partnership with an Italian, on the Italian model. The investment is considered successful, adjusted to the European requirements and with great chances to resist on the European market. This reveals the fact that Romanian migrants 76

82 become more and more potential agents of change, of development. Private transfers determine social development both at a personal, family level, and at community level. Since 1997, I had this business idea in my head, of a prefabricated blocks factory, but I did not have financial power, I trued to open a disco, I lost some of the money there, now I am in partnership with an Italian, friend of mine, who helped me with some of the money to buy machines. All the machines are brought from Italy, everything is taken from there: the work method, the preparation formulae. (businessman, Năneşti) 77

83 The diversity of the intentions for the future is quantitatively captured in the chart below (Figure 2). Almost 4 out of ten Romanians do not intend to undertake any of the activities mentioned as possible answer variants (the 13 variants shown in Figure 1). Form the individuals who answer yes to at least one variant of those suggested, 64% choose to improve their home no plan one plan plans 3 plans plans 5 plans 6 plans 7 plans 8 plans 9 plans plans plans plans Figure 2. Diversity of plans (number of intentions expressed) What makes Romanians think of more plans? The analysis of the data indicates that the number of plans is greater at the same time with the increase in educational and financial capital, but also in the case of the people who intend to migrate. It decreases as the individuals grow old, and it is smaller at the people from Moldova and at the people who come from localities with a high prevalence rate (the temporary departures to which we add the number of people returned from abroad, per one thousand inhabitants). 35 These plans for the future can be grouped into three categories of projective strategies 36 : Change, meaning a leap in the quality of life by making significant improvements to the house, the increase in the incomes by working overtime, by looking for a (another) job, the change in the way of living. Accumulation meaning the purchase of resources (especially goods) and their orientation towards a well established goal, such as moving into a better house, building a house, setting up a business, purchasing land, spending the holidays abroad. Studies, representing a status leap for the young man who wants to continue his studies, to move to the town, in a smaller apartment. Who are the people orientated towards these future models? The orientation towards the accumulation of resources is more stressed in men, those aged 18 to 59, with a low level of income or even with no income, from the urban area, from Muntenia, who intend to migrate. 35 According to a regression pattern, where the independent variable is the number of plans, and we chose as explanatory variables the subject s age, last school graduated, income in July 2006, residence, migration experience, prevalence rate on 2002, R 2 adj = 44,5%. 36 Grouping of the 12 plans was generated by PCA- Varimax factorial analysis, 3 factors resulted, KMO=0,

84 The people who want a change, either by improving their living conditions, or by changing their occupation status, are young, with higher occupations, who work or have worked abroad before. As expected, the people orientated towards the accumulation of educational capital are mainly young, who intend to migrate, resident in Transilvania. What is relevant to this analysis is the orientation towards investments in a business, towards consumption or saving. Analysing the answers to the question If you won a large sum of money, say 100 thousand Euros, what would you do with most of this money? We notice that, in essence, the aspirations of the Romanians go towards consumption and accumulation (50% would spend money on various needs, 13% would deposit it with a bank) and less Romanians are orientated towards entrepreneurship (21%). As expected, entrepreneurial orientation is observed at the people who have worked, travelled, or intend to migrate to another country. Non-migrants, those who never left and do not intend to leave, want to spend the money on satisfying various needs or save it at banks. (Table 2) Table 2. Intentions to use a large sum of money according to the migration experience If you won a large sum of money, Nonmigrant say 100 thousand Euros, what Migrant Work Travel Intention would you do with most of this household household money? Total I would invest it in a business 34% 35% 33% 23% 16% 21% I would spend it for various needs (house, car, trips) 51% 47% 52% 47% 51% 50% I would deposit it with a bank 8% 7% 10% 13% 16% 13% Something else 1% 0% 0% 2% 1% 1% I would give it to the children (grandchildren)/i would help my 0% 6% 2% 5% 8% 6% children (grandchildren) I would donate it to poor people 2% 3% 0% 2% 2% 2% I would donate it to the church 0% 0% 1% 0% 1% 1% I would emigrate 1% 1% 0% 1% 0% 0% The data in the table represents the percentage of individuals who answered Yes Another aspect targeted by our analysis is the answer to the question How much do the plans for the future affect the purchases? If we shift from the projective plan to the concrete one, of putting the plans into practice, we notice a focus of the economic policies more on consumption and less on investments. An analysis of the expenses in the last 5 years shows that the Romanians orientated, first of all, towards purchasing household appliances (48%), then towards the expansion, modernization of the house (37%), tending the agricultural land (31%). They invested less in purchasing houses (5%), lands (4%), setting up a business (3%). The people who invested in setting up a business or in real estate (houses, lands) were mostly those who have worked abroad, compared to the non-migrants. (Table 3) Table 3. Expenses in the last 5 years according to the migration experience In the last 5 years, did you spend money for...? Work Travel Intention Migrant household Nonmigrant household Purchasing a house 10% 12% 6% 3% 4% 5% Building a house 14% 13% 12% 6% 7% 8% Expanding/modernizing the home 45% 59% 45% 37% 32% 37% Purchasing a car 26% 33% 16% 20% 11% 16% Buying lands for house building 5% 8% 4% 4% 3% 4% Total 79

85 Buying lands for agriculture 3% 6% 4% 5% 2% 3% Tending agricultural land 20% 22% 30% 35% 32% 31% Buying agricultural machines 4% 5% 1% 5% 2% 3% Setting up a business 10% 9% 1% 2% 1% 3% Buying household appliances 60% 64% 61% 56% 42% 48% Tourism 25% 44% 26% 16% 9% 16% Buying computer 32% 36% 21% 20% 18% 21% The data in the table represents the percentage of people who incurred such expenses in the last 5 years Also, following the discussions with the migrants who currently work abroad, it resulted that the main fields in which they invested money were: household appliances, modernization/improvement of living conditions. I invested the money in the house and in the car. (migrant, Năneşti) I bought household appliances for my home, washing machine. (migrant Năneşti) I spent the money on daily needs, for the children. (migrant, Năneşti) With the money I sent from Italy, my parents paid an instalment on a refrigerator and bought what they needed in everyday life. (migrant Năneşti, woman) It is not about our daily living, because from what I and my husband earned, we managed to provide for our daily living, but if you want to do something...i came for the girls, because years go by and I will wake up on day, a few years from now, that I will have to pay I don t know how many tens of million and I won t have this kind of money. We are saving for school. This year, I managed to send them to the seaside, if I had been at home, they wouldn t have gone, because we wouldn t have had money. I would like to change my car, because I have a Dacia. (migrant, woman) Plans for temporary or definitive migration? Working abroad is, in most cases, a temporary strategy. Most people who intend to migrate in the next two years, do this for work on a set period of time, choosing to accumulate financial resources, which they would then invest in the country. We can say that, in particular, the migrants from the rural communities see the countries of destination as places where they can make money, not as countries where they could spend the rest of their life. The key part in their plans to return home is played by emotional motivation, despite the discrepancies between the level of the earnings abroad and that in the country. We want a house here, not there. I like it there, too, but here I feel closer to my native places, where I spent my childhood. There is something that draws me here, the family, the places. (migrant, woman, Năneşti) Although, on the declarative level, the migrants plans are not to settle in the countries of destination, they have started to purchase goods and even houses there, their children learn at the schools in those countries and adopt the customs there. I feel something for Romania, I have land, parents, the school I used to attend, but the child is born in Italy, he will study in Italy, we want to give him a brother. Maybe things will change in Romania, too. I bought a studio apartment in Italy, next year I want to sell this one and buy a bigger apartment. (migrant Italy, man). Conclusions Analysing this data, we observe that the investment strategies of the Romanians are limited. The money is directed towards improving life standards and contributes to the local development by the improvement in the condition of the houses. The villages are being reconstructed rather by reaching a degree of individual prosperity than by collective actions aimed at obtaining common benefits, the funds invested by the migrants contributing to modernization and comfort, especially in their own households. 80

86 The share left for investments in a business is very small because of the lack of financial resources, but also because of the insufficient development of the market infrastructure, especially in the rural areas, from where many migrants come. Romanian migrants become more and more potential agents of change, of development. Private transfers determine social development both at a personal, family level, and at community level. The Romanians economic policies focused more on consumption and less on investments. In the past 5 years, The Romanians orientated towards purchasing household appliances, expanding, modernizing their house, and less towards purchasing houses, lands, setting up a business. 81

87 Regional-community dimensions Italy: Between informal and illegal, tolerated, but not legalized! Ana Bleahu If you have blisters on your hands, even if you are illegal, nobody will do anything! (Romanian emigrant) 37 The migration of Romanians to Italy is characterized by two essential aspects: 1) it is mostly an informal, illegal, clandestine migration that 2) has the tendency to turn into a semipermanent, long time migration. We shall attempt to capture the main implications of these two essential dimensions in everyday life, but especially on the labour market. It is a strictly empirical material, which will describe the La Fripta community and the work depots. This material is based exclusively on the analysis of the qualitative data 38 : interviews with emigrants, taken in the country, interviews with emigrants taken in Italy, interviews with members of the families with emigrants. Dozens of migration accounts, dozens of life stories, from which we shall attempt to pinpoint the specific features of the phenomenon of Romanian emigration to Italy. The interviews were taken in Romania, in the Vrancea area, and in Italy, in Rome and its surroundings. Surroundings mean independent localities, such as: San Cesario La Dispoli, Tivoli or in the forests of the Mala Grota area. Some of the interviews were recorded, others written down, and some were just spontaneous discussions (in particular, those who did not have residence or work papers refused to be recorded). Here, your brother is no longer your brother : about the seclusion of the Romanian emigrant Non-official statistics 39 show that, in Italy, there are approximately one million Romanians. The leaders of the Romanian associations say that they are more than one million and a half. The perception of the Romanians there about themselves is that they are millions... everywhere around Rome, you can hear someone speaking Romanian. And in 37 We would like to thank all the emigrants who shared their experiences with us: Adrian, Marius, Paul, Mihaela, Augustin, Ioan, Ciprian, Gheorghe, Florica, Marieta, Ovidiu and many others. We also express many thanks to Bălăucă, the orthodox priest, and to Carlo, the Benedictine monk, who mediated many of the interviews taken. 38 I would like to specify that all the quotes used are from interviews taken by Ana Bleahu and Mihaela Stefanescu. 39 Global News, November 10,

88 Torino, I won t even say it, we will become the majority there. In rest, in every town in Italy, it is impossible not to find Romanians (migrant, aged 28). From these, only approximately 300,000 have official papers (permessi di soggiorno anuali or permanenti). The number of Romanian citizens who are illegally in Italy, according to the data published in October 2006, by the National Institute of Statistics in Italy, is 297,570 people, namely more than 10% of the total number of 2,670,514 foreign residents in Italy. In 2004, according to the data of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the number was 243,793 people (compared to 237,010 people, in 2003). In the last 20 years, the different Italian governments tried to cope with the new challenges of the immigration in Italy. A series of laws were elaborated (the Martelli Law no. 39 of 1990, the Turco-Napolitano Law no. 40 of 1998, the Bossi Fini Law no. 189 of 2002), but the management of this phenomenon remains inadequate, and it is often used only as point of attraction in the public discourses of the politicians 40. Thus, there are different levels of illegality or informality of the Romanian emigrants in Italy: some have expired residence or work papers that they still use, received permesso de sogiorno for a limited period of time, others have requested and are awaiting the resolution of their legal status (according to the Bossi-Fini law), and others have not even submitted the papers. One million and a half Romanians is a great number compared to 300,000 Romanians what are staying legally. The calculation is very simple. The ration is one legal Romanian who supports other four illegal Romanians. Fact proven true by the field experience in Italy. How did the house rental market and the labour market absorb such a great number of Romanians? Where are these immigrants? 41 The Romanians that go to Italy find it easy to guess other Romanians in the street, for us they have maximum visibility, they seem to be everywhere, but the whole answer to this question is: some of them live crowded in legally rented apartments, where only one has legal papers, all other 4, 6 or 10 are there illegally, therefore, at a simple calculation, apart from the 300,000 who stay there legally, we have another minimum 600,000 who are there illegally. There is also the category of the badante or the women who work in Italian families. There are others who live in the most different places possible: the metronomii are those who walk through subways or peripheral train stations with a small rucksack on their back, they wear rubber slippers because we are saving the tennis shoes for the days when we find work ; in the scrapyards where the guards let us in, but only after it gets dark...and we leave on the dark, we go straight to the depots, or in the forests around Rome, where they live in huts covered in plastic. The kinship, neighbourhood networks, as well as the fact of belonging to the same community (village, neighbourhood) in Romania represent an important point in increasing the number of illegal emigrants to Italy. Many Romanians leave to Italy carrying the telephone numbers of as many friends or relatives as possible. And there are more and more stories about the mobile phones that stay turned off after people previously promised to offer their help. What exactly does a migration network mean? The cores of these networks were the old emigrants. These are the people who arrived among the first in Italy, invested sums of money and time (sometimes, they even put their lives in danger for this) (see case study). Case study I left Romania in 1997, I left with a guide. The guide was a friend of mine. I crossed the border at Arad. I crossed to the Hungarians, to the Slovaks, in Croatia then in Austria and Italy. We crossed the border by bus as far as Hungary. I paid a total of 1,000 dollars to this friend of mine. We were four people, all friends, we knew each other. The guide in Romania worked for someone else. Someone else was the boss that 40 Colombo, A şi Sciortino, 2004, Gli immigranti in Italia 41 at one of the international seminars in which I participated, the question, otherwise correct, of a participant was: there probably are 1.5 million Romanians, but where are they? 83

89 we did not know, but we trusted the person in Romania. We had a guide as far as Slovenia. Then, the guide who was Romanian returned home. From Slovenia, we went on foot through woods and vineyards...for a whole night. In the beginning, we didn t know that we had to go on foot. We stayed for five weeks in a hotel until we managed to cross on foot. We were only four and we had to wait for other people, so as to pass all at the same time. They paid for the hotel and all the expenses. Practically, there occurred some mix-ups because we weren t supposed to wait that long. They were our friends. The people from the hotel did not have anything to do with us. The people with whom we crossed on foot were Romanians from Moldova and Ukraine. In these five weeks, we permanently kept in touch with them. We spoke on the phone or one of them came to the hotel and visited us. We paid for our food. But after two weeks, we ran out of money and they brought us food. When we crossed the border, we were about 20 people, in a file one behind the other, boys, women, girls, some from Romania, others from Moldova. Before crossing the border on foot, they had tried four times to send us by train. They didn t even know where to send us. They said that they would send us to Austria by train, and from there someone with a car was supposed to pick us up. But I didn t want to do that because it was very uncertain. It was like going directly to the police. And... we didn t want to risk it. They took us by car to the train four times. They thought that maybe they would persuade us. Once they took us in the field where the train was supposed to stop and left us there. We completely froze because it was a hard winter. It was February. There were soldiers with dogs. But we stayed hidden down on the field, in the bushes... we only had few clothes to change...we left on January 28 and we arrived in Italy on March 12. It was so cold...we only kept warm by running...we crowded into each other... There were women who got sick, we had to help them... we couldn t stop. We had to go on... For the most part we passed through vineyards. There were many wires, we had to keep quiet, it was hard for the women. When we arrived in Italy, we slept for one night in the woods, we crowded into each other, then we spent the entire day in the woods. We ate together, those who came after us still had money from home. And they gave us food, too. Even if we didn t know each other. We ate canned food... The first time we arrived in Venice. From the woods, they took us by car to Venice. There we split up. Each where he/she had to go. I took the train to Rome. I had a cousin and an uncle who had been there for a year or so, I only stayed at my cousin for one night, because they were many, too, about 6-7, men, family. Then, I went to my uncle who let me stay for three days and then he spoke to the employer. He didn t tell the employer that I had already arrived. Therefore, I had to stay locked in a closet, in the dark, for three days, for the employer not to see me. The employer didn t want me... he told me that there are checks...police, and he could not help me. Then I wanted to go to England. My friends in England told me that they would send me money to go to them. But, in the end, through some friends of my uncle, I found a job here. After 2002, after the opening of the borders, the number of Romanian emigrants in Italy increased very much. These emigrants who were equal in terms of migration experience, work experience, living experience, could not help each other. Thus, most emigrants choose to separate. They go on their own to solve their own problems. Migration becomes, for most of them, a strictly individual experience in which the solutions to the problems are found at random, by and by, every emigrant on his/her own. If, in the beginning of the migration, these networks represented an actual and essential support factor for the emigrants, as their number increased, they became more restrictive, less permeable and less efficient. Thus, we are witnessing the reduction in and the dissolution of the networks by their oversizing and oversaturation. 84

90 It depends on your luck seems to be the basic rule for the success or failure of an attempt to migrate. The stories of the new migrants begin to look the same. The loneliness, hunger, fear of the authorities, uncertain jobs, employers who do not give the money on time or even at all, appear in everybody s discourse in different accents. The emigrants seem to be the most acutely affected by the phenomenon of fragmentation of family relations. On the one hand, the relations between spouses deteriorate, resulting in the increase in the number of divorces, and on the other hand, the destructuring of the relations between brothers, children and parents. There is phenomenon which is a catastrophe for all here. Divorces! I myself have translated hundreds of divorce sentences. There are tens of thousand divorces. Many families were destroyed. Either the men left the children, or the women left the men. The betrayal of the family is one of the plagues that we are fighting. The distance, the needs, the stress make this generation a generation of sacrifice. (Bălăucă, priest) Here everybody runs from everybody. If you bring your wife, you become jealous of the Italians, because they have money, if you bring your brother, there are discussions that he has found a job and you haven t... Everything happens because of the money. They return home even for a week and they become friends again...then here they fight...they get separated. (migrant, aged 25) Informal communities of the Romanian migrants The basic support for the informal emigration of the Romanians to Italy is thus, on the one hand, the legal migration, and on the other hand, certain ad hoc hierarchical structures, based on the free association or power, blackmail, violence. As specified, the lack of documents means the lack of a normal life: you can not rent a house, you work only on the black market, you are not entitled to healthcare services, you live in a state of constant fear of the authorities, of others in your situation, etc. we slept on fields, we were surrounded by wires, alarms, for fear of being attacked, like in the Rambo movies...all are like that on the field, with traps in which you can break your neck if you enter their shack, with trap beer cans...here we had a sleeping bag and a pillow outside on the field...we had no luggage... (migrant, aged 25) In this context there appear certain semi-organized communities, based on informal hierarchical structures; a new phenomenon is emerging, which we could call the life under a bridge, on the field or the life in the woods. A house is essential for the success of a migration attempt. The people who do not have residence or work papers, can not enter into lease contracts. The first thing when you arrive in a foreign country is to have a place to live. The friends or relatives who help you provide you first with a place to stay. If they do not help you stick to other Romanians just like you, if you re lucky to come from the same area as them it is very good, if not, things are eventually solved, maybe you pay more if they do not like your face... (migrant aged 25) Case study: La Fripta We get down at Mala Grota, in a normal bus station. To the right there is the locality. We walk along the road until we go into the bushes. We jump over a small ditch and we enter 85

91 the woods. In the woods, the path that leads to La Fripta starts. La Fripta is a community of Romanians, which is already almost 4 years old. Before we had the huts on the bank of the river, it was easier, we had non-stop water, but the carabinieri [Translator s note: the Italian police] came with the bulldozers and tore them down. Here they can not enter with the bulldozers because this is a forest, and the carabinieri are not in the mood to come and tear down our huts. Some of them are chained to the trees. There is someone who knits the structure from thicker branches. Then we put nylon sheets, tarpaulins... It s better here, because we are well hidden, only the carabininieri know about us being here... for so many years that we ve been here, they know almost every one of us, they know everything... Italian employers who come to take us to work also know. Photo: La Fripta In these places where the Romanians built shacks in the woods, some people have lived for years. The carabinieri only enter with dogs and pistols. Some of the Romanians do not even have Romanian passports. They are grouped together according to the area from which they come Oltenia, Maramureş, Moldova etc. To the right there is the path that leads to the people from Oltenia, they are more on a hill side, only 20 or so, in the valley there are the people from Moldova, they are about 40, and here are we, the people from Satu-Mare, we are the most numerous, we are about 100 people. The youngest is 4 months old, Crina s child... her man left with another woman and she came here to her parents... and the oldest is 64 years old, he doesn t even work, he spends his time around here and sometimes guards the huts when we go to work. Photo. Structure of a hut: We make them strong...if the carabinieri try to pull them down they shouldn t be able to ruin them... (migrant, La Fripta) They have a kind of boss, the only one with residence or work papers, and who is also the main negotiator in the relations with the local authorities. The Boss has been in Italy for 14 years. He has all the documents. He knows all and they all know him. It is from him that they find out exactly in what days the carabinieri come in inspection. they usually come in the morning, at about 6-7. They know for sure that then they will find only those who do not have a job. Those who work and those who are looking for work leave for the depots at about 5 AM. They know that we do not steal. As criterion of inspection, the carabinieri check our hands: if you have blisters, they leave you alone! The Romanians are very organized. They are not united, but they are well organized. They are the only minority that got organized in this manner, ad-hoc, near Rome. The huts can be rented. The rent is 50 Euros per month. Apart from the rent, there are also protection fees that vary according to the level of danger of the migrant in question. If you have a colourful past, you pay more to be accepted. No one can move in with us without the consent of several people. In principle, someone has to recommend you. If you just come here and stay around here... you have to pay anyway 86

92 The information circulates orally, from one man to another. The Romanians have taken their orality with them! (orthodox priest). Everything is done from one man to another. In their huts, almost all of them have mobile phones. you can say anything, but you can not be without a phone, you can t resist, you don t find jobs, you don t find out this or that, the first thing when you arrive in Italy is to buy a telephone. Then you can make calls and wait for people to call you. The depots The expansion of the networks has led to the weakening of the intensity of the support and assistance relations for finding a job. We are too many already, we can no longer hep each other much, because work is no longer easy to find. Apart from this relative saturation of the unskilled labour market, the lack of formal institutions of the labour market, but also the seasonal nature of the work in agriculture and in constructions have led to the creation of the informal job market: the so-called depots. The depots are places where the Romanian emigrants in search of work. They are work depots for constructions or agriculture. The depots for construction work (Catel de Guido, La Storta, Ponta Roma) are usually located close to certain stores-depots, that sell construction material (from where this denomination came). Thus, the Italian employers who come and buy construction material may also choose people for that work in a simple and efficient manner. The depots for work in agriculture are located outside Rome, close to important bus stations or in a place where several buses interconnect. This is where the people who live in the nearby woods, in the scrapyards, on the field usually gather (Mallagota) In the smaller towns close to Rome, the depots are usually located in the centre of the towns (La Dispoli, San Cesario) The way in which these informal institutions operate is simple. At 5,30 each morning, the Romanians come and wait outside, in the open air, until around 12. They smoke, they gather in small groups, they laugh, they talk, they exchange information. Most of them are men, but you can also see women: why should I go and prostitute, I d rather stay here and maybe find some work (woman migrant). Photo: Malagrota depot at 11 AM! The idea of belonging to one region or another is kept. It is a known fact that at Ponta Roma you find those from Bacău, and at La Storca there are the people from Oltenia: we are transntţional but regional. The climax is the appearance of an Italian employer. Some come with large vehicles:..they get us on and they take us where they need us, they make some of us get down...we climb on as many as possible, then he gets us down... But how do they choose you? What are the criteria? It depends, if they come in a smaller car, it matters who is the closest when they stop the car, or who opens the door of the car first. When big employers come, they usually know us and say to one of us how many people they need. And then we choose among us, because we know each other, you bring someone you trust so as not to work for him, too...it is the worst when you have a Romanian employer, they exploit you... or they pay you late, sometimes he doesn t give you any money at all, and threatens you, and if you do not have relations... that s that, you lose the money!... 87

93 If two of us go together it s still something... But if only one goes by himself, you never know. I heard about a Romanian who tried to beat up an Italian employer because he did not want to give him the money after having worked for him for a week. And they said that the Italian killed him and buried him... it was written in the Romanian newspaper. These places are well known by the authorities, they are tolerated by the carabinieri. In these places, the visibility of the Romanian emigrants is maximum: we are easy to hunt here, if there is an inspection, they would immediately give us a via slip 42 to all of us. If you have Romanian papers and blisters on your palms they don t give you a via slip. They know that we, who stay here, do not steal, we just want to work. At the crossroads between two worlds Here you are a slave, you are Romanian therefore you are a slave, you are not their equal...but you enjoy their civilized world together with them (migrant, aged 23) It is hard to remain in Italy, but it is also hard to leave Italy. The rejection factors of the Romanian society weigh just as much as those of attraction to the new world. Once you forged yourself in Italy, it is hard to come back to Romania with no regrets. This crossroads situation is characteristic to the informal, semi-permanent migration that defines the Romanians migration to Italy and, to a certain extent, to Spain. By comparison, the circulatory migration for work to Germania does not pose such problems. The lack of legal regulations distorts the possible positive effects of work migration. The legislative permissiveness combined with the inadequacy of the legislation to the emigrational movement, based on supply and demand, may lead to lack of balance both in the countries of destination, and in those of origin, affecting the profound weave of social relations: people loose themselves. They can not go home, because they are not convinced that they will have the opportunity to return some day, and... they can not stay here quietly because they do not have residence or work papers. 42 the road slip is a document by which illegal immigrants are warned that, after a set period of time, they should leave Italy. Some of the interviewees had received several via slip, but they did not comply with the request. 88

94 Case study: A Romanian in Italy 89 Mihaela Ştefănescu I left together with my colleague to Roma, in September 2006, to speak to Romanians gone there to work. We did not have to look for them much. When we arrived at the airport in Rome, Mărioara helped us find the bus that took us to the center of the city. When we arrived at the hotel, Mihaela helped us check in, considering that the people who worked in the hotel were all Romanians. When we went out for a coffee, we shared our table with two Romanian workers (because the place was very crowded). This is Rome, during the 14 days that we stayed there, we met and spoke to many Romanians, we both heard many stories in Rome and we saw what it means to work abroad. The first stop that we made in Rome was at a Romanian church. We had heard from Romania about priest Bălăucă, a priest who has been in Rome for 12 years, and who set up one of the first Romanian parishes in Italy: the Parohia Naşterii Maicii Domnului. The priest Bălăucă has held services for seven years now at the Nativita del nostro Signore Gesu Cristo Church, on via Gallia, 162 where, through the good offices of the parish priest there, he rented the projection room of the church. The entrance is somewhat to the right side of the church, and there we found a room full of people, a few hundred Romanians who come every Sunday to the service. Priest Bălăucă told us that there the people come to the church for more than the Sunday service, people come for help, to find a job or an apartment with a good rent, and they come especially in order to meet with other Romanians, in order to be informed and to feel a little more at home in a foreign country. People who come to Italy do not come here to look for the Church, they come for money. But coming here, they suddenly find themselves in an entirely different world compared to the world at home. Some go through crises, after a few months work, they stay most of the time inside, women in particular, who have fix jobs, many of them do not know their rights, so they come to the Church. Here at the Church there is a permanent information point with regard to the legislation, the rights, the points where you can go to, whom you can speak to... sometimes we provide them with forms... (Priest Bălăucă, Italy) Here, at the Church, I met Marius. A young man of 26 who sings at the Romanian Church on via Gallia, 162. I will tell you Marius s story because it is the usual story of a Romanian in Italy, in his story we find the usual path (from the last 3 years after the free access to the European Union) of a Romanian who searches for a better life abroad. Marius is a graduate of the Şcolii de cântăreţi bisericeşti ( School for Psalm Readers ) in Buzău. In Romania, he used to sing at a parish in his home town, Adjud. At the parish in Adjud, he worked on the black market and had an income of 3 million ROL. He decided to leave to Italy to work, because he could not find a decent job, because his low income did not allow him to live a decent life, and especially because he felt that in Romania he could never afford to start a family or buy a house. He chose Italy because he had friends there who promised that they would help him find a job close to Rome. Several friends of mine promised, come, we ll bring you here, we ll help you, well, when I left, there was initially only one friend but I left with several other connections, too. When I got here, all the telephones were turned off, here it is something common, here a brother would skin another brother. Here it is all about the money. (Marius, aged 26, Rome, Italy) He had 100 Euros in his pocket that his father had given him, he wasn t even able to pay for his bus fare, he went with a friend from a bus company who let him come on condition he would pay him after earning some money in Italy. I came here. I was equipped with a nylon sheet from home, from Romania, because I also took into consideration the case in which I would stay in the bushes. You know how it is in winter, if you stay under a nylon sheet, no matter how cold it is, it is a little warmer. Fact which actually happened. On the bus, a friend, someone who stayed near Adjud, from a village, a commune nearby, asked me: do you know from your town? I know him.

95 Well, I ll take you to them under a bridge in Rome. We stayed under the bridge, shacks, rats, where we paid. To whom did you pay? To someone who lived around there. Because he was the first to come here. What if you refused to pay? Well, I didn t, because when you arrived there, you didn t stay wherever you wanted to. In the beginning you had to speak to them. They bullied you, who you are, what are you doing there...? you couldn t just enter like you were at home. Finally, I was lucky that I knew this man s grandchildren. I paid 10 Euros per week. The last time I was paying 15 Euro per week, then I found out that others were paying even up to 20 Euros per week. How long did you live under the bridge? I stayed there for some months, I ate out of the garbage container, I was going to mercato ( the market ) and did the shopping for the guys, I wanted to do that, because I had no money, and some people dropped 10 cents, 20, 50. I usually went where there was a market nearby, 2 bus stations away, where they sold meat. The Italians, when they cut the hen, pig, no matter what, throw away the intestines, the grease, they throw it in the container, I took it out of the container and I brought it home, because that was my home, and I cooked. I want to tell you that it was even a very tasty food. (Marius, aged 26, Rome, Italy) He tried, after a few days stay in Italy, to go to a friend from his childhood, in Sicily, who had promised, as the ones before her had, that she would help him, and just like those before her, once arrived in Sicily, this friend turned off her telephone and he found himself alone again and confused in a strange place, where he could speak to no one, because he didn t know the language, had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. After four days of staying in Italy, someone called me to Sicily, come, I have work to give you, it was someone I grew up with in my town. Did you have a mobile phone or were you talking again to your friends? Yes, I bought a mobile phone. Well, I didn t buy a mobile phone at first, in the first day, I bought telephone cards for public payphones. Finally, they called me to Sicily, 13 hours by train, 894 km from Termini station. How much was it? About 45 Euros, but I did not have them all, I had spent it because I had paid my host (under the bridge), I also paid here and there for food, in order to be better for me, I bought a little something to the boss there. I only had about 25 Euros, the grandson of the person under the bridge, whom I knew from Romania, he took me there, God bless him!, he took me on a scooter, with this scooter he took me as far as Termini, we traveled for 3 hours. We looked around there and he helped me because I didn t know the language, anything. He bought me a ticket, and enough food for lunch to eat on the train. Meanwhile, I called the girl 10 times see girl, I hope... No, Marius, I wouldn t do that to you, come here, you ll also sleep here, eat here...i said look how Sf. Peter placed his hands on my head. Finally, this boy saw me off, bought me a ticket from the special machines, because I didn t know how to do it. I arrived there, when I arrived the telephone was turned off. But, why? Maybe because this is the latest fashion here. Have you spoken to her since? Yes, I left here in the evening and I arrived there around noon, I found her telephone turned on. I told her, girl, I want you to realize something: I have nothing to eat, not even 1 Euro to return, I have nothing, nothing... look, I am outside the town... she hung up and I realized that it was all a bluff. I tried to speak a phrase or two in English, one in French, but I couldn t. I started to cry, I arrived in a hotel and I tried to find lavoro (work in Italian). And I left there hungry, I went and looked on the board, just like it is in Romania, to see what time was the train leaving and I got on the train. At the first stop, the person who checks the tickets came and got me off the train because I had no ticket And just like that, I took a slower train, then I 90

96 took the wrong train, I was either going back or in the right direction and just like that I arrived in Rome. I took the boat from Sicily and a guy taught me how to get onboard that ship. I arrived Tuesday evening in Rome Termini and I returned under the bridge. (Marius, aged 26, Rome, Italy) And then I started my life. Marius, helped by a neighbour from where he stayed, under the bridge and then found work as dish washer in a restaurant, where he earned 500 Euros per month, accommodation and meal. Meal means the rests off the table, which he served by himself because he cleaned the dishes and, as he said the hen eats where it roots. And the accommodation was arranged in a container like those that the workers have, with no heat or hot water. He did not last there long because he was working 18/20 hours/day and even 24 in the busiest days. I returned under the bridge. Again. I was eating at Caritas canteens, I got some clothes, I took new clothes, clothes from the associations that help the poor and when they soiled, I threw them away. I worked as much as I could, I worked as day labourer, I went there close to the bridge, there was a sort of deposit, from there they took you to work. Anyways, this area is called Lazio, and here people work on the black market, even if they have documents. (Marius, aged 26, Rome, Italy) He found a normal job only after a year. He took a job as gardener, constructions worker and so on. Then he worked for a year at a sports centre, earning 35 Euro per day, there I did a little bit of everything, I swept, I tended the tennis and football courts, etc. (Marius, aged 26, Rome, Italy) Now he works with a constructions company and he is called to work on project, he is happy here, he earns quite well and has an 8-hour work schedule. He lives in a two-room apartment outside of Rome, somewhere at the seaside, near Ostia, which he shares with his wife and another couple. For this apartment they pay 600 Euro, namely 300 Euro per couple. Marius has been in Italy for 3 years now, he speaks perfect Italian and has plenty of experience so as to know how to find a job and a house, and, in general, how to get by in Italy. I had 10/15 jobs. The Romanian is very inventive, where there is money to earn, that s where he goes. Marius is staying illegally in Italy, just a few months ago he submitted his papers to receive a residence and work permit, he doesn t know yet whether the response is positive, according to the Bosi-Fini Law 43. Being an illegal immigrant in Italy means not having job certainty or the certainty that you will receive the income promised, at the end of the month, it also means that finding a house with a reasonable rent is very hard, and most importantly it means that you have to hide from the carabinieri, because you can be deported at any time. Marius earns here much more than he would earn in Romania with his training, money that allows him to have a decent life, a house and to start a family. It is here that he also found a (Romanian) wife. His wife has been here for 6 years, she has residence papers and works on an hourly basis, as a housekeeper in Italian homes. How did you meet your wife? In the most crowded place in the whole Italy, in Termini, where you punch your ticket. At noon, on June 18. I knew her sister, her sister was visiting her. I saw her sister and I stood there thinking for a while whether to go and say hi to her. And I said hi and look what came out of it. We exchanged telephone numbers there, she left to Romania. We spoke on the telephone. 43 The Bosi-Fini Law is the Italian law that regulates the residence permits and work in Italy. 91

97 With regard to the plans for the future, Marius has not decided yet. He would like to return to Romania, but only if things are going to change here. What are your plans for the future? First of all, to return to Romania, but not in today s Romania. I would rather live under the bridge than to come back in today s Romania. We (Marius and his wife) agree to stay here. Marius is sick of Romania because, as he says, in Romania everybody wants bribe: at customs, at the doctor, even at the Town Hall for the civil wedding. Marius together with his wife are saving money, now that they can think about the future and no longer worry for tomorrow. They are saving money to buy a house, for the beginning, an apartment in Romania just to be sure that they have a place to retire in case things go wrong in Italy, then they also want to buy an apartment in Italy, because they can easily get a credit and that would be a good investment. 92

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