"Factors of emigration: analysis of countries from the European Union"

Abstract

The past decade was a period that was characterized by massive migration flows in European Union countries, a situation like none other before. Different migration flows contributed to inflow of working force from conflict areas of the Middle East, countries from the Western Balkans, and also migration within the European Union. While immigration is dominant, emigration also has large impact in the migration flow in the EU. The purpose of this paper is to determine the main factors that contribute to emigration in the 28 EU countries. The panel regression model with random effects is used where seven factors were examined in order to determine their influence on the emigration. Macroeconomic determinants include GDP per capita and unemployment rate, demographic factors include total population, young male population and young female population and other factors include level of corruption and enrollment in tertiary education. Analysis includes 28 EU countries, while the analyzed period is 1999-2017 (19 periods), and the total number is 560 observations. The results confirm that emigration is driven by unemployment rate, total population, young male and young female population. When the unemployment rate increases, the emigration also increases, which is logical. If the national labor market cannot provide vacancies for the increasing supply of work force, the next option would be emigration in another country due to eligible working positions. Population, as demographic factor, also influences emigration. The bigger the population, the larger emigration is expected. Also, young female and male population have statistically significant effect on the emigration, yet the direction of the relationship is different. Increase in young male population can contribute to increase in emigration. On the other side, increase in young female population reduces the number of emigrants. From the results it would seem that demographic factors dominate over macroeconomic and other factors. Policy makers in the countries with accentuated emigration component should be concerned that young male population is leaving, and this labor force is or soon will become deficitary. Also, unemployment is another issue that should be addressed. National governments should create policies that contribute to increased economic growth that produces vacancies. Otherwise, the high unemployment rate would soon drain the country out of its working source. Other factors such as level of corruption, GDP per capita and enrollment in tertiary education seem not to have statistically significant impact on emigration in the countries of the European Union.