The impact of migration on sending countries, with particular reference to Central and Eastern Europe
6. Conclusion: The rationale for adopting an inside-out approach
As already argued, it is more realistic and useful to start one’s analysis of migration impact by identifying significant aspects of social change in a given country and then investigating how social remittances intertwine with other influences to effect this change, among different sections of society and in different locations. In most respects there is no ‘average Pole’ or ‘typical household’, so a fine-grained analysis is needed, taking
into account the different tendencies among different social groups, and the different types of migration that characterise different people and places.
There are rare hints of such an approach in the migration literature, in the sense that migration is understood to be somehow contributing to and combining with other causes of social change. For example, Markova (2010a, 3) remarks:
An interesting phenomenon has been observed in Albania – a pro-portion of the female working population has withdrawn from the labour market. There are various explanations for this: one factor certainly is the return to traditional family values, according to which women are responsible for domestic work and men are those earning money outside the household. Another explanation relates to the increased dependency on money sent home by emigrant husbands.
However, Markova does not develop this thought, and it remains unclear how, if at all, these factors interrelate. Blum (2015, 4) provides a more sustained analysis; he argues that understanding the ‘social, cultural, and institutional context is essential in order to appreciate the issues at stake in enacting various nontraditional practices drawn from abroad’. In his discussion of a sample of young Kazakh returnees, Blum prefaces his analysis of each type of remittance – from ideas about gender equality to attitudes towards sitting on the ground – with comments about related areas of ongoing social change in Kazakhstan. This makes his book the closest in approach to our own, as far as we are aware. However, most of the information on trends is not backed up with statistical evidence;
instead, Blum tends to make assertions based on his extensive first-hand knowledge of Kazakh society. More importantly, Blum does not attempt to explain precisely how social remittances relate to types of change already occurring for other reasons (and uses the vaguer term ‘hybridisa-tion’ in preference to ‘social remittances’).
A handful of other scholars, mostly writing on a rather abstract level, also note the coexistence of change driven by migration and change driven by other factors, making the point that they are hard to disentangle. As Faist (2016, 331) points out, ‘In general, it is difficult to clearly pinpoint the impact of cross-border mobility, given the overall matrix of change and transformation produced by globalization.’ Boccagni and Decimo (2013, 2) similarly mention that ‘distinguishing migrants’ specific influ-ence, within the wealth of material and symbolic resources that circulate between and within nation-states, may be quite a hazardous task’.
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Levitt and De Haas both suggest the reciprocal nature of migration and non-migration influences, though Levitt appears to attribute slightly greater weight to migration. Citing the example of CNN’s impact in the Dominican Republic, Levitt writes that ‘global cultural flows also heighten[s]
remittance impact’ (2001, 68) and Levitt and Lamba-Nieves (2011, 3) argue that social remittances ‘are distinct from, but often reinforce and are reinforced by, other forms of global cultural circulation’. De Haas suggests:
It is important to recognize that migration itself is [a] constituent part of a complex set of radical social, cultural and economic trans-formations that have affected Morocco, as well as an independent factor in perpetuating and probably intensifying, magnifying and accelerating these processes at the local and regional levels. Migra-tion is not only a factor explaining change, but also an integral part of change itself to the same degree as it may reciprocally enable fur-ther change. Ofur-ther processes, such as improved education, increas-ing exposure to electronic media, improved infrastructure and tourism[,] also play a key role in opening people’s eyes to the wider world and helping to raise aspirations. (2007, 32)
Looking at the matter ‘inside-out’ helps disentangle such processes of change. Collecting as much information as possible about each individ-ual social trend and its different possible explanations should enable the researcher to form an impression of how different factors interrelate. For example, Poles today seem somewhat readier than before 2004 to believe that ‘most people can be trusted’. A simple social remittances approach might suggest that some migrants acquire more trusting attitudes as a result of migration to trusting countries such as Denmark and Norway.
Individuals may then behave in a more trusting way after they return.
However, this is definitely not the whole picture. Trust is commonly associated with levels of prosperity and education, both of which have been rising in Poland and can help account for the Polish trend. Since migration money is part of that prosperity, this is a (second-order) migration influence. Trust is also a cultural matter. Generalised trust is still low in smaller towns and villages, from which many Poles migrate, suggesting the need to consider how local migration cultures may help to suppress the effect of other factors that might promote rising trust. In fact, many stories circulate about agencies who cheat would-be migrants and about Poles abroad who let down other Poles, so in this case it seems the migration influence might be rather strong. Finally, it is important
to notice when individual people behave in unexpected ways as a result of migration. For example, interviews with return migrants to small towns can reveal that trust is important to them and that they do like living in more trusting societies. The influence of migration can be seen as particularly important when the migration experience itself was nec-essary to convert the individual to such a viewpoint.
Notes
1 Migration scholars are active both in Romania and abroad. The Romanian Network for Migration Studies (RoMig) was founded in 2016. For English-language sources on Poland, see the publication lists at http:// www . ucl . ac . uk / ssees /people/anne-white/ssees/ research / polish - migration.
2 Albania has the most migration in Europe. One third of the population now lives abroad, according to King et al. (2014, 30), a much higher proportion than in Poland.
3 Orozco and Rouse (2007), in their otherwise wide-ranging review of HTAs, seem to assume that HTAs would not operate in European sending countries. They do not comment on Europe at all. Fiń et al. (2013, 81) recommend the creation of HTAs in Poland, implying there are none.
4 Writing about Lithuania, Nevinskaitė (2016) argues that the shift in policy from encouraging migrants to return to harnessing diaspora potential occurred after the 2008 crisis.
5 In the case of Romania and Poland, it did accelerate some returns that would otherwise have occurred somewhat later (Barcevičius et al. 2012).
6 The socio-demographic profile of return migrants varies from country to country.
The authors of OECD (2017, 252) observe: ‘In Armenia and Costa Rica, highly educated people are more likely to come back compared to those with a lower level of education, while it is the opposite in Burkina Faso, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines’. However, they agree that, overall, the best qualified people are the least likely to return.
7 According to Nevinskaitė (2016, 148–9), ‘Almost 40 per cent of Lithuanians abroad perceive a negative attitude from Lithuanians in Lithuania towards emigrants . . . 8 out of 10 employers claimed they would prefer an employee without emigration experience over one with such experience.’
8 Up to and including the fourth, 2009, edition. The 5th (2014) edition is slightly different, because de Haas joined the authorial team.
9 Levitt categorises social remittances slightly differently in different publications.
10 Goldring (2004, 808) writes that this term became common in the early 1990s.
‘It describes money raised by a group that is used to benefit a group or community with which it is afiliated.’
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