The nature and extent of intra-EU migration from CEE

In her article Grzymała-Kazłowska (Reference Grzymala-Kazlowska2013: 5) attempted to summarise the vast literature on CEE migration issues in order to understand what CEE is and what countries are covered by this frame.

In this article we predominantly cover the CEE countries – EU8 – which joined the EU in 2004Footnote ¹ with some reference to those who joined in 2007Footnote ² . The EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007 prompted new migration flows in Europe. Fassmann et al. (Reference Fassmann, Kohlbacher and Reeger2014) calculated that, by 2011, almost five million citizens from CEE countries resided in the ‘old EU’ (cf. Okólski and Salt, Reference Okólski and Salt2014). Their movements were mostly labour market-driven (Fihel et al., Reference Fihel, Kaczmarczyk and Okólski2006) which means that they mainly responded to the current demands and supplies of the labour markets (Krisjane et al., Reference Krisjane, Apsite-Berina and Berzins2016 – for Latvia), regardless of their formal qualifications. Geddes (Reference Geddes2003: 192) explains for instance that the response to migration opportunities ‘has less to do with the personality or character of individual migrants’ but much more to do with ‘the perspectives on international migration and migrants by institutions and organizations at the national and international level’.

The outflow of people is not evenly distributed across the CEE countries. The World Bank (2006) came up with the first estimates soon after the 2004 EU enlargement, when the outflows peaked: Lithuania’s working age population shrank by 3.3 per cent, Latvia’s by 2.4 per cent, Slovakia’s by 1.3 per cent, Poland’s by 1.2 per cent, and Estonia’s 1.1 per cent. Most of these migrants went to the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland, who were the first to open their labour markets to workers from EU10Footnote ³ although the UK was an exception that A8Footnote ⁴ migrants still needed to register on the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS)Footnote ⁵ . Three years later, Kahanec et al. (Reference Kahanec, Zaiceva, Zimmermann, Kahanec and Zimmermann2009) calculated that between 2004 and 2008, the labour force in the whole of EU 8/A8 had shrunk by 1.16 per cent. Particularly affected in their study were: Poland (1.77 per cent of its labour force), Slovakia (1.34 per cent of its labour force), Lithuania (1.14 per cent of its labour force) and Lithuania (1.14 per cent of its labour force).

Compared to migration in the post-communist system transition period (1989-2003), post-accession migration was characterised by a higher intensity and a greater diversity of migrant strategies (Grzymała-Kazłowska, Reference Grzymala-Kazlowska2013). The flows following the enlargements of 2004 and 2007, especially, are treated as historically new phenomena in the EU in view of their multifaceted character; their characteristics include the co-existence of different forms of mobility (commuting, short-term, long-term, circular, permanent, self-employment, posted workersFootnote ⁶ ) and a big share of well-educated people (e.g. Galgóczi and Leschke, Reference Galgóczi and Leschke2012; Engbersen and Jansen, Reference Engbersen and Jansen2013).

The unexpected scale of movement within the enlarged EU of the last fifteen years gives rise to questions about its economic and social effects and implications for public policy in sending countries. The majority of literature documenting the impact of EU enlargements focuses on receiving countries: this article fills in the gap by focusing on sending countries.

The methodological approach

To analyse the socio-economic impact of intra-EU mobility on sending countries and migrants themselves, we employed a desk research approach based on a literature review (Newell, Reference Newell and Newell1998) of findings published worldwide between 2005 and 2018 in scientific journals articles, research monographs, chapters in edited volumes and open access policy reports produced through a peer-review process. The aim of this analysis was to create a qualitative overview of how others have addressed the issue and how main lines of explanations are narrated in order to uncover what scholarly knowledge has been produced across disciplines (Repko and Szostak, Reference Repko and Szostak2017: 126). The topic of the impact of EU enlargements requires literature searches across several disciplines (Newell, Reference Newell and Newell1998): economics, sociology and migration studies. While conducting the analysis, we avoided normative judgements on the impact of intra-EU mobility on the sending countries. Our intention was to examine the processes discussed across both economic and social arguments, allowing the picture that emerged as a result to speak for itself (for the selection of the literature see Table 1).

Table 1

An overview table describing impact indicators, countries of study and the referenced literature

Source: own elaboration.

The aim of this desk research analysis was to synthetically juxtapose arguments on the impact of the EU enlargements on the sending countries and migrants themselves and shift the debate to ‘the settled post-enlargement era’. It was also intended to systematically identify research uncertainties, gaps and consensus on these effects which can provide implications for policy.

Economic impact

The existing studies on intra-EU mobility show that the overall economic impact of post-accession mobility has complemented the ongoing changes, but with both expected and unexpected effects. At the level of the individual CEE sending countries, the overall economic impact of migration is predominately determined by the pace of adjustment of labour and capital, by the skill profiles of the migrant and native populations, and by the real size of the migration flows (D’Auria et al., Reference D’Auria, Mc Morrow and Pichelmann2008).

Kahanec et al. (Reference Kahanec, Zaiceva, Zimmermann, Kahanec and Zimmermann2009) found that the economic impact of post-enlargement migration, on balance between receiving and sending countries, was very low but positive. Between 2004 and 2009, at the early post-enlargement stage, free movement brought a total increase of 0.2 per cent of GDP (about twenty-four billion euros). However, it appears that receiving countries seem to benefit more than sending countries; the total benefit for EU15 countries amounted to 0.26 per cent of their GDP, while the sending countries of EU8 lost 1.1 per cent of their GDP. This data did not cover Bulgaria and Romania. The biggest profiteers of the post-accession freedom of movement were Ireland (2.93 per cent of GDP) and the UK (0.89 per cent of GDP). The biggest losers but also the biggest senders were Poland (−1.94 per cent of GDP), Slovakia (−1.51 per cent of GDP) and Lithuania (−1.15 per cent of GDP).

Another study by Holland et al. (Reference Holland, Fic, Rincon-Aznar, Stokes and Paluchowski2011) found that the potential economic output of the EU has increased by 0.8 per cent due to migration from EU 10Footnote ⁷ (Malta and Cyprus were not included in this study). The countries with the highest positive potential outputs were Ireland (3 per cent) and the UK (1.2 per cent). The countries with the highest negative outputs were Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania. The modelling performed by Holland et al. (Reference Holland, Fic, Rincon-Aznar, Stokes and Paluchowski2011) shows that, in the longer term, the outflow of people from CEE countries may not only result in some loss of growth potential (the greatest losses are: Lithuania, −6 per cent; Romania, −10.6 per cent; Bulgaria, −5.4 per cent; and Latvia, −3.3 per cent) but also in a reduction of income per capita.

According to Barslund et al. (Reference Barslund, Busse and Schwarzwälder2015), wage difference is the main driver behind mobility in the EU and most regional shocks are absorbed by shifts in labour market participation rates, not by labour mobility. Kahanec et al. (Reference Kahanec, Zaiceva, Zimmermann, Kahanec and Zimmermann2009) claim that it is not obvious that emigration causes the labour markets of sending countries to become more employee-driven, with wages increases as a result. Whether or not this is the case, it depends on the nature of the migrants. The departure of highly educated workers increases the wages in the high-skilled labour market and increases unemployment in the low-skilled labour market (Kahanec et al., Reference Kahanec, Zaiceva, Zimmermann, Kahanec and Zimmermann2009). The departure of low-skilled decreases unemployment, with negative effects on wages in the high-skilled sector. Kahanec et al. (Reference Kahanec, Zaiceva, Zimmermann, Kahanec and Zimmermann2009) also claim that migration increases the risk of wage imbalances as a result of labour shortages. However, in the long run, investments will adjust to the new situation. Contrary to the expectation that a reduction in the labour force will push wages up, and higher wages will increase labour participation (e.g. see Beblavy et al., Reference Beblavý, Maselli and Veselková2014; Veselková et al., Reference Veselková, van der Gaag, Boiter, Lancesseur, Zagamé, Beblavý, Maselli and Veselková2014), the positive effect is only short-term.

There is also a wage effect of return migrants on their countries of origin. Martin and Radu (Reference Martin and Radu2012) collated EU-LFS data about return migration in CEE countries. They analysed the income premium for work experience abroad. Consistent with previous results, they found that the income premium for work abroad ranges between 10 per cent and 45 per cent. Return migration accelerated after the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, with Romania, Lithuania and Poland being the main gainers (Barslund et al., Reference Barslund, Busse and Schwarzwälder2015).

CEE migrants send part of their incomes back home, predominantly to support their families, thereby indirectly supporting the economy of their country of origin as well (Markova, Reference Markova, Black, Engbersen, Okólski and Pantiru2010). A general rule about economic remittances is that the more temporary and circular migration flows are, the more money is remitted to the sending countries (OECD, 2006). It is also worth comparing these remittances with the inflow of EU Funds to the CEE countries (Barbone et al., Reference Barbone, Pietka-Kosinska and Topinska2012 and cf. Grabowska et al., Reference Grabowska, Garapich, Jazwinska and Radziwinowiczówna2017; White et al., Reference White, Grabowska, Kaczmarczyk and Slany2018) due to their redistributive function mentioned at the beginning of this article.

According to Bodvarsson and Van den Berg (Reference Bodvarsson and Van den Berg2009), when migrants remit a substantial part of their earnings from abroad to their home countries, the influx of new money in the market can lead to an increase in the total demand for labour in the sending country. During the first phase after the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements, the total amount of money remitted from EU15 to CEE countries was higher. For instance, in Poland, migration money exceeded the inflow of money from the European Structural Funds (Barbone et al., Reference Barbone, Pietka-Kosinska and Topinska2012) until 2007. Following the enlargements, the duration of migrants’ stays gradually increased, and they started to unite with their families, bringing them to the destination countries, and to adopt more individualistic life styles which causes decreasing amount of economic remittances.

There are at least two contradictory studies about the effects of economic remittances on CEE countries. Goschin (Reference Goschin2014) argues that economic remittances are capital flows and have macroeconomic growth potential for CEE countries. According to panel aggregate data that covered ten CEE countries in the period of 1995-2011, the main overall results of analyses are the significant positive influences of remittances on both absolute and relative GDP growth. Another study by Gjini and Moisiu (Reference Gjini and Moisiu2013) based on balanced panel data from twelve CEE countries over the period 1996-2010 found that remittances had negative effects on GDP growth in these CEE countries during the period studied. In the latter case, an increase in remittances by 10 per cent decreased output by approximately 0.9 per cent. The explanations for these divergent findings, and therefore research uncertainties, are complex and may relate to a variety of effects across CEE countries, such as welfare effects – how migration money is spent and how it impacts on the economic activity of non-migrating household members – and the labour market status of migrants after their return: some migrants after return withdraw intentionally from economic activity for a while (Fihel and Grabowska-Lusinska, Reference Fihel and Grabowska-Lusinska2014).

There is much evidence that economic remittances to CEE countries are primarily spent on consumption. This is best seen on the meso level of local communities (Bulgaria – Markova, Reference Markova, Black, Engbersen, Okólski and Pantiru2010, Romania – Sandu, Reference Sandu, Black, Engbersen, Okólski and Pantiru2010; Poland – Wieruszewska, Reference Wieruszewska2010). Economic remittances may also create specific dilemmas for households, because, by boosting purchasing power, they might reduce the incentive to seek employment (Austers, Reference Austers2015).

The existing studies have not produced any evidence of migration with the aim to get welfare in the EU only (Austers, Reference Austers2015) (discussion also in e.g. Nowaczek, Reference Nowaczek, Black, Engbersen, Okólski and Pantiru2010). It seems that the welfare systems of the receiving countries profited more as a result of post-accession enlargements than the welfare systems of the sending countries, since migrants are primarily young people with high labour market participation rates. They have much less need of welfare arrangements than the older segments of the receiving populations (Austers, Reference Austers2015). Furthermore, it seems that the outflow of people, especially young people, has a detrimental effect on the welfare systems of sending countries, taking also into account ageing processes. However, it is possible that, in the short term, the welfare losses of the sending countries are somehow balanced by the welfare benefits transferred by migrants (mostly unemployment and children benefits). Nevertheless, the threat exists that the outflow of people, especially the young and well-educated, may hamper the sustainability of social protection systems (pension and medical care) (see e.g. Mereuta, Reference Mereuta2012 for Romania). Also relevant in this context is the model constructed for Poland by Fihel et al. (Reference Fihel, Janicka and Kloc-Nowak2018), which showed that aging of the population would have occurred either way, regardless of whether the accession triggered a migration outflow or not.

A different explanation focuses on the concept of modernisation of the sending labour markets via migratory outflows. Kaczmarczyk and Okólski (Reference Kaczmarczyk and Okólski2008) claimed that CEE countries need to experience so-called crowding out (Layard et al., Reference Layard, Blanchard, Dornbush and Krugman1994), which can be facilitated by out-migration. They claim that the majority of European countries went through this process in the late nineteenth century. However, countries like Poland have had over-surpluses of labour in the agricultural sector, where some parts of local economies remain as relics of subsistence or natural economy. In this sector people have little chance of changing their socio-economic status unless they abandon the sector by migrating elsewhere. Analysis of migratory selectivity patterns supported this crowding out hypothesis. Kaczmarczyk and Okólski (Reference Kaczmarczyk and Okólski2008) showed that, at least in the first phase following the 2004 EU enlargement, people from economically disadvantaged small towns and villages, with low employment opportunities and relatively large semi-subsistence sector, had a stronger tendency to migrate. Kaczmarczyk (Reference Kaczmarczyk, White, Grabowska, Kaczmarczyk and Slany2018: 105) summarises the impact of post-accession migratory outflows on the Polish labour market:

Another explanation argues that the departure of unemployed and under-employed people reduces the need for housing and makes other social provisions more available to the stayers, including welfare (Austers, Reference Austers2015). Evidence from individual CEE countries shows however that a substantial proportion of migrants were employed prior to their departure (cf. Kaczmarczyk, Reference Kaczmarczyk, White, Grabowska, Kaczmarczyk and Slany2018; Hazans, Reference Hazans2013). For instance, among those who left Poland in the first phase after 2004 EU enlargement, 50 per cent had stable jobs before departure, 25 per cent were unemployed, and 14 per cent were inactive (Kaczmarczyk and Okólski, Reference Kaczmarczyk and Okólski2008). Those who left Latvia (Hazans, Reference Hazans2013) were predominately employed before departure, between 80 and 90 per cent. This suggests that wage differences mattered much more than employment opportunities (Austers, Reference Austers2015).

Martin and Radu (Reference Martin and Radu2012) collated EU-LFS for return migration in CEE countries and their labour market participation. They showed that return migrants are less likely to actively participate in the labour market, even though they earn a wage premium for work experience abroad (10-45 per cent); instead, they go for self-employment. Return migrants to CEE countries are also more likely to have spells of unemployment during the first year after return.

To summarise, if we look at classical economic indicators, we see on the one hand that GDP gains are unequally distributed between sending and receiving countries. On the other hand, local sending economies both directly and indirectly receive money from the EU in the form of economic remittances and EU Funds, the combination of which can eventually compensate for the negative economic effects in the long run. It depends however on earlier economic adjustments which took place during the pre-EU enlargements system transitions processes in the individual CEE countries. We also see that wage differences and the purchasing power of money have been much more important for migrants than sending local employment opportunities – predominantly employed people have undertaken intra-EU mobility.

Social impact

The interrelated socio-economic effects of the EU enlargements are clearly recognisable when one considers the total human capital approach (Hagan et al., Reference Hagan, Hernández-León, Hernández-León and Demonsant2015), followed by social remittances (Levitt, Reference Levitt1998) and the social mobility of migrants. Therefore the effects of migration on human capital should be analysed in relation to both tangible (educational attainment, formal qualifications, work experience) and intangible (social skills, competences, well-being) components. It is also important to consider the above-mentioned economic remittances in relation to social remittances, i.e. the transfer and circulation of all non-financial resources such as norms, values, practices, ideas, social capital (Levitt, Reference Levitt1998), knowledge and skills (Grabowska and Garapich, Reference Grabowska and Garapich2016a; Grabowska et al., Reference Grabowska, Garapich, Jazwinska and Radziwinowiczówna2017; Grabowska, Reference Grabowska2018a, Reference Grabowska, White, Grabowska, Kaczmarczyk and Slany2018b). While discussing the effects of migration, especially on migrants themselves, from the perspective of sending countries, it is important to consider social mobility; not with reference to natives in a receiving country as it has usually been done, but in relation to stayers in the relevant sending country (e.g. Grabowska, Reference Grabowska2016a; Masso et al., Reference Masso, Eamets and Motsmees2013).

Discussions of the impact of migration on the human capital of CEE migrants often involve the concepts of brain flow as well as brain drain and brain squandering. In some countries – primarily the Baltic States – emigration has achieved an enormous scale in relation to the size of their population and it is reported that they might lose a whole generation who was under twenty-five during the first years of enlargement (Thaut, Reference Thaut2009; Austers, Reference Austers2015). As in the case of Poland, migration is highly selective by region, gender, age and education; the analysis by Anacka and Okólski (Reference Anacka, Okólski, Black, Pantîru, Okólski and Engbersen2010) showed that the relative losses were remarkable, with the population of certain groups – especially people between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine – having been reduced by as much as a quarter. There is also a group of young people who immediately take their first job abroad upon completing their education, without even trying their chances in their country of origin: 30 per cent in local surveys in Poland in 2007 (Grabowska, Reference Grabowska2016b). The outflow of medical specialists from Romania (e.g. Tilea et al., Reference Tilea, Vasile and Tilea2013), the Baltic States and Slovakia, especially, is perceived as one of the biggest ‘losses’ (Bélorgey et al., Reference Bélorgey, Garbe-Emden, Horstmann, Kuhn, Vogel and Stubbs2012: 4). In the case of Poland, the outflow of medical specialists is not perceived as a national mass phenomenon (Kaczmarczyk, Reference Kaczmarczyk2013), but might affect local health institutions.

From some of the national censuses and research in the receiving countries, we know that large groups of persons who migrated after 2004 and 2007 from post-communist countries work below their formal qualifications, indicating mismatches between their qualifications, occupations and jobs held in the destination countries (e.g. Currie, Reference Currie2007; Grabowska-Lusinska and Okólski, Reference Grabowska-Lusinska and Okólski2009; Nowicka, Reference Nowicka2012, Reference Nowicka2014; Voitchovsky, Reference Voitchovsky2014). In the case of Polish migrants, one in three individuals in the total migrating population and one in two migrants with third-level education who left Poland after the EU enlargement in May 2004 had jobs for which they were overqualified based on their formal qualifications (Statistics Poland, 2013). This has to do both with the nature of the labour markets in the EU, which predominately acknowledge national recognition of qualifications, limited access to certain occupations, bureaucracy and host country language competences (cf. Dustmann, Reference Dustmann1999) and ability of people to accept lower status jobs as they still pay more than jobs in home countries.

There are various lines of explanation that involve the concept of brain flow from CEE. According to Galgóczi and Leschke (Reference Galgóczi and Leschke2012), the 2004 and 2007 enlargements did not improve the distribution of human capital between East and West, due to the qualification and population losses in the sending countries. On the contrary, it has, in their opinions, led to a waste of human resources in the form of both classical brain drain and brain squandering. Galgóczi et al. (Reference Galgóczi, Leschke and Watt2011) especially stress the youth drain both in Poland and Latvia. Kaczmarczyk and Okólski (Reference Kaczmarczyk and Okólski2008) claim that if we take into account the selectivity of migration and local and regional labour market conditions, a significant share of the outflow may be regarded as a phenomenon of brain overflow, rather than brain drain, with the caveat that the EU enlargements are the outcomes of a set of public policies to balance various resources in the EU.

Another line of explanation relates to the impact of migration on the intangible human capital of CEE migrants. Baláž and Williams (Reference Baláž and Williams2004) and Williams and Baláž (Reference Williams and Baláž2005) first showed the importance of tacit skills in human capital transfers in their analysis of various groups of skilled return migrants to Slovakia: professionals, managers, students and au pairs. In particular, they highlighted language and communication skills, which can be transferrable in the global world, interpersonal skills and self-confidence and, especially, social recognition. In their research, many migrants expressed that migration had changed their perspectives, self-awareness and self-confidence.

Grabowska (Reference Grabowska, White, Grabowska, Kaczmarczyk and Slany2018b) in White et al. (Reference White, Grabowska, Kaczmarczyk and Slany2018) showed that although large numbers of highly educated Polish migrants were downgraded in the host labour markets in terms of their formal qualifications, they were able to improve their social skills, particularly with regard to communicating and acting in socially diverse environments. Based on both the extensive data set of Human Capital in Poland 2010–2014 and qualitative findings, they demonstrated that working abroad for more than three months impacts on social skills (cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal), and that this impact grows with the generational age cohorts: the longer a migrant has lived under communism, the more their social skills are impacted by international migration.

Most other social effects are best considered at meso (local community) and micro (family, individuals) levels (Faist, Reference Faist2016). Elrick (Reference Elrick2008) found out that migration has become the main vehicle for social mobility and the main strategy for escaping from social deprivation. Resources from migration both tangible and intangible helped people to raise their social status in local social strata. Masso et al. (Reference Masso, Eamets and Motsmees2013) analysed the impact of the temporary migration of Estonians on their social mobility. They used data from an Estonian online job search portal covering approximately 10-15 per cent of the total workforce. They did not find any positive effect of temporary migration on upward social mobility, and, for women, the effect was even negative. As the authors point out, these results may be related to the predominantly short-term nature of migration from Estonia and occupational downshifting abroad as well as to the structure of the domestic labour market.

Grabowska (Reference Grabowska2016a) argues that in order to see the effect of migration on a socio-occupational path, a reference population of stayers is needed. The effects of migration also differ in relation to the form of migration: seasonal or non-seasonal, repeated or single. She found out that migration impacts on the career sequences brings more dynamics in work life as compared to stayers, along with both upward mobility (nearly 20 per cent of researched migrants) as well as downward mobility (14 per cent of researched migrants).

In addition to economic remittances, people also transfer or circulate non-financial resources obtained through migration: norms, values, practices, ideas, and social capital captured as social remittances (Levitt, Reference Levitt1998). Through social remittances, migration can alter socio-economic structures in the origin country: social class and ethnic hierarchies, traditional care arrangements, family structures, gender relations, cultures of migration, and entrepreneurship (Kaczmarczyk, Reference Kaczmarczyk2013). Social remittances were mostly studied in a non-European context between developed and developing countries. However there are emerging studies showcasing the impact of social remittances in the CEE countries (Sandu, Reference Sandu, Black, Engbersen, Okólski and Pantiru2010; Grabowska and Garapich, Reference Grabowska and Garapich2016a; Krzyżowski, Reference Krzyżowski2016; White, Reference White2016; Grabowska et al., Reference Grabowska, Garapich, Jazwinska and Radziwinowiczówna2017).

Sandu’s (Reference Sandu, Black, Engbersen, Okólski and Pantiru2010) survey analysis in Romania covered micro (personal and household) and meso (community) social effects of migration. The first order effects that he found included an increase in financial resources and social capital and a ‘modernisation of values’, showed higher consumption, entrepreneurship and modernised family behaviours as second-order consequences. The analysis discussed the improvement of housing, the development of private sectors and demographic effects such as increasing divorce rates and declining birth rates as third order effects. He concluded that migrants are modern risk-takers who introduce values relating to the importance of work, secularism, life success and leisure time into their communities. They are ‘modern person’, which manifests as ‘openness to new experiences’, time planning, and a positive attitude towards technological innovations. Return migrants assessed that working abroad was a way to change their own view on work, life strategies, quality and use of time and sociability, as compared to stayers (Sandu, Reference Sandu, Black, Engbersen, Okólski and Pantiru2010).

A general survey among Polish society revealed that persons with migration experience evaluate their opportunities in the Polish labour market more positively than non-migrants, are more self-confident, open-minded and ready to accept different lifestyles and are relatively critical of religious and political authority. Data shows that social remittances are fairly limited social phenomena, but effects may be visible in the longer term (Kaczmarczyk, Reference Kaczmarczyk2013).

The social effects of migration on local communities were studied in the 1990s and early 2000s, mostly in Poland (Jazwinska and Okólski, Reference Jażwińska and Okólski2001; Elrick, Reference Elrick2008; Okólski, Reference Okólski2012), with incomplete migration as a predominating patternFootnote ⁸ . Contemporary studies on the social effects of migration on CEE local communities mostly relate to social remittances (for Poland: Grabowska et al., Reference Grabowska, Garapich, Jazwinska and Radziwinowiczówna2017) and connect with them migration-development nexus Footnote ⁹ (for Romania: Cucuruzan, Reference Cucuruzan2008; discussion for Poland: Grabowska and Garapich, Reference Grabowska and Garapich2016a; White et al., Reference White, Grabowska, Kaczmarczyk and Slany2018).

In recent decades, studies in communities with a long migration history and a high volume of outflow have shown that the factory and post-coop cultures of local communities seems to have been replaced by a ‘migration culture’ (cf. Massey et al., Reference Massey, Arango, Hugo, Kouaouci, Pellegrino and Taylor1993), especially in places where incomplete migration patterns still persist (Okólski, Reference Okólski2012). In this line Elrick (Reference Elrick2008) also find out that the impact of migration on origin communities is dependent on the intensity and temporality of migration as well as the type of migration. Those communities who experienced rather intense migration with regular employment abroad are more able to impact local normative structures and bring back values and goods than those whose members primarily engaged in temporary, undocumented migration.

Grabowska and Garapich (Reference Grabowska and Garapich2016a) and Grabowska et al. (Reference Grabowska, Garapich, Jazwinska and Radziwinowiczówna2017) studied social remittances between UK and three selected local communities in Poland with different histories, system transition paths and migration history. They found that individual migrants themselves are the missing link in the ‘migration-social change nexus’ of local communities. The money obtained through European Structural Funds for developing road infrastructure, public spaces, office spaces is not enough for social changes in local communities to happen without a change in mentality of local actors, which may be in part be effected by migration. Return migrants themselves might bring both social remittances of innovation and social remittances relating to nuanced multiculturalism and racism (Gawlewicz, Reference Gawlewicz2015), which may take the form of selective tolerance but also stronger conservatism (preservation of traditional nature of local community). All cases show that the outcomes of leaving the homogeneous contexts of Polish local communities and encountering socially diverse environments endow migrants with new social skills.

To summarise, we see that EU enlargements have made certain contributions to the social and cultural make-up of CEE local societies both in terms of total human capital and through mechanisms of social remittances, but the migratory outcomes depend on local opportunity structures and earlier migratory experiences and traditions of local inhabitants. Social effects are well seen, however, alongside the economic impacts and as complementary to top-down EU public policies relating to four freedoms (if they include return mobility) and redistribution of EU Funds.