Migration from new-accession countries and duration expectancy in the EU-15:
2002-2008
Jack DeWaard[1]
Jasmine Trang Ha[2]
James Raymer[3]
ArkadiuszWiśniowski[4]
Abstract
European Union (EU) enlargements in 2004 and 2007 were accompanied by increased migration from new-accession to established-member (EU-15) countries. The impacts of these flows depend, in part, on the amount of time that persons from the former countries live in the latter over the life course. In this paper, we develop period estimates of duration expectancy in EU-15 countries among persons from new-accession countries. Using a newly developed set of harmonised Bayesian estimates of migration flows each year from 2002 to 2008 from the Integrated Modelling of European Migration (IMEM) Project, we exploit period age patterns of country-to-country migration and mortality to summarize the average number of years that persons from new-accession countries could be expected to live in EU-15 countries over the life course. In general, the results show that the amount of time that persons from new-accession countries could be expected to live in the EU-15 nearly doubled after 2004.
Keywords
European Union; Migration; Duration of Residence; Completed Stays; Life Course; Duration Expectancy; Multiregional; Multistate
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by center grant #R24 HD041023 awardedto the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesotaby the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and by research funds awarded to DeWaard by the Life Course Center at the University of Minnesota. The age-specific migration data used in this paper were estimated as part of the Integrated Modelling of European Migration (IMEM) Project, funded by the New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Co-operation in Europe (NORFACE), 2009-2012. The authors wish to thank the Editor and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Abstract
European Union (EU) enlargements in 2004 and 2007 were accompanied by increased migration from new-accession to established-member (EU-15) countries. The impacts of these flows depend, in part, on the amount of time that persons from the former countries live in the latter over the life course.In this paper, we develop period estimates of duration expectancy in EU-15 countries among persons from new-accession countries. Using a newly developed set of harmonisedBayesian estimates of migration flows each year from 2002 to 2008 from the Integrated Modelling of European Migration (IMEM) Project, we exploit period age patterns of country-to-country migration and mortality to summarize the average number of years that persons from new-accession countries could be expected to live in EU-15 countries over the life course. In general, the results show that the amount of time that persons from new-accession countries could be expected to live in the EU-15 nearly doubled after 2004.
Keywords
European Union; Migration; Duration of Residence; Completed Stays; Life Course; Duration Expectancy; Multiregional; Multistate
1. Introduction
Efforts to assess the economic and social impactsof enlargements of the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007 are limited by “uncertainty about the duration of stay” among persons from new-accession countries in established-member (EU-15) countries (Sumption and Somerville 2010:17).[5]Research suggests that many persons from new-accession countries have no intention of staying permanently in EU-15 countries, with upwards of 50 percent leaving within the first five years after arrival in some cases (Blanchflower and Lawton 2008; Dustmann and Weiss 2007; Green et al. 2007).Thesefigures, however,reflect “current stays,” or the duration of a single migration trip, and not “completed stays,” oraccumulated lived experience in EU-15 countries over the life course (Green et al. 2007:73).The duration of completed stays is particularlyimportant in this context given the highly temporary, circular, and repeated nature of migration (Dustmann and Weiss 2007; Quinn 2011; Sumption and Somerville 2010; White 2011; Zaiceva and Zimmermann 2012). Of course, there are significant obstacles to estimating the duration of completed stays, including (i) the fairly short amount of time that has elapsed since EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007, (ii)that migrants from new-accession countriesarevery young, with many years ahead of them to accrue time in EU-15 countries (Brücker and Damelang 2009), and (iii) over the life course, non-migrants in new-accession countries might eventually select into migration.
Given these issues, in this paper, we develop period estimates of duration expectancy in EU-15 countries among persons from new-accession countries. Taking a multiregional (or multistate) approach (Rogers 1975, 1995; Schoen 1975, 1988), we exploitperiod age patterns of country-to-country migration and mortality to generate conditional life expectancies at birth. Our estimatessummarize the average number of years that persons from new-accession country icould be expected to live in EU-15 country j over the course of their lives if, at each age, they were exposed to the prevailing risks of country-to-country migration and mortality in period t. Estimates are developed for each pair of new-accession and EU-15 countries each year from 2002 to 2008. Given well-documented problems with how countries differentially collect, process, and report migration statistics (Kahanec et al. 2010; Kupiszewska and Nowok 2008; Massey et al. 1998; Nowok et al. 2006; Poulain et al. 2006), a key innovation of this paper is our use of harmonisedestimates of country-to-country migration flows developed by Integration Modelling of European Migration (IMEM) Project (Raymer et al. 2013), which permit bounding our estimates of duration expectancy by corresponding measures of uncertainty.
2. EU Enlargements, Migration, and Impacts
EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007 resulted in increased migration from new-accession to EU-15 countries (Brücker and Damelang 2009; Kahanec et al. 2010).This is not surprising since migration flows are often responsive to wage and employment differentials favoring receiving (versus sending) countries (Greenwood 1997; Massey et al. 1998), not to mention reduced barriers to intra-EU mobility afforded by EU membership. Nonetheless, it was concerning at the time because, relative to EU-15 countries, with the exception of Cyprus and Malta, new-accession countries were former Eastern Bloc countries with lower national incomes, younger populations, and more recent transitions to a market-based economy (Kahanec et al. 2010).
Bracketing well-documented problems with the availability, quality, and cross-national comparability of migration data (Kahanec et al. 2010; Kupiszewska and Nowok 2008; Massey et al. 1998; Nowok et al. 2006; Poulain et al. 2006), issues to which we will later return, the 2004 enlargement of the EU was accompanied by a pronounced increase in the number of foreign-born residents living in EU-15 countries.Excluding Cyprus and Malta, between 2000 and 2004, the average annual change in the number of foreign-born residents from new-accession countries living in the EU-15was +61,000 persons (Brücker and Damelang 2009; Kahanec et al. 2010).Between 2004 and 2005, this figure increased to +250,000 persons, and climbed upwards thereafter, with the United Kingdom and Ireland absorbingthe bulk of these gains.Similar changes in the number of foreign-born residents from Bulgaria and Romania living in EU-15 countries were recorded after these countries accessed to the EU in 2007, with most of these gains concentrated in Italy and Spain.Althoughthe magnitudes of these changesalso capture processes other than migration, they provide reasonable estimates of the overall trendof migration from new-accessionto EU-15 countries following EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007.
With respect to economic and social impacts, many countries in the EU-15 did not immediately open their labour markets to persons from new-accession countries in order to buffer the potential effects(Boeri and Brücker 2001; Kahanec et al. 2010). Indeed, the reason that the United Kingdom and Ireland absorbed such a large share of new-accession migrants after the 2004 enlargement of the EU is because they immediately opened their labour markets (Barrett 2010; Blanchflower and Lawton 2008; Green et al. 2007; Sumption and Somerville 2010). Other countries in the EU-15 gradually opened their labour markets to persons from new-accession countries, with Austria and Germany being the last to do so.Barrell et al. (2010) showed that labour force increases on account of migration from new-accession countries following EU enlargements were associated with short-term increasesin GDP per capita, unemployment, and inflation in EU-15 countries.Long-term gains in productivity and GDP were also reported, as well as eventual declines in unemployment and inflation. However, as they pointout, their results are sensitive to factors that vary across EU-15 countries, including social welfare policies, infrastructure, and housing (for detailed assessments for selected EU-15 countries, see Kahanec and Zimmermann 2010).
3. Duration of Residence in the EU-15 among New-Accession Migrants
An important consideration in efforts to assess the economic and social impacts of migration from new-accessionto EU-15 countries is the amount of time that persons from the former live in the latter (Sumption and Somerville 2010). Duration of residence isawell-documented indicator of migrants’ economic and social integration in receiving countries (Geddes et al. 2005; Huddleston et al. 2011; Niessen et al. 2007).In the context of receiving countries in Europe, duration of residence has been linked to outcomes including migrants’ educational, occupational and earnings trajectories (De Valk et al. 2011; Le Grand and Szulkin 2002; Van Tubergen 2004); residential integration (Vono-de-Vilhena and Bayona-Carrasco 2012); civic participation (Aleksynska 2011; Wright and Bloemraad2012); and health and mortality assimilation (Malmusi et al. 2010; Mladovsky 2009). As noted by Geddes et al. (2005:15) in their discussion of the European Civic Citizenship and Inclusion Index, now called the Migrant Integration Policy Index (Huddleston et al. 2011; Niessen et al. 2007), long-term residence, in particular, affords migrants the ability to “contribute to society whilst maintaining their links with their country of origin and move freely within the EU.” This is also a key considerationof supra-national governing bodies, e.g., the European Commission, in setting immigration and integration policy priorities.
While duration of residence is typically estimated using retrospective survey questions or migration life histories, there is substantial “uncertainty about the duration of stay”among persons from new-accession countries in EU-15 countries for several data-related reasons (Sumption and Somerville 2010:17). First, estimates of duration of residence in EU-15 countries by country of origin are often unavailable, generated from data sources of varying quality, or not cross-nationally comparable (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2008; Zaiceva and Zimmermann 2012). Second, existingestimates require grouping into coarse duration intervals to facilitate cross-national comparisons (Van Tubergen 2004:155; note, this is also an issue with estimates provided by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2008). Finally, even the best estimates using complete life histories of migrants are limited to only a handful of sending and receiving countries (Goldstein 1964; Toma and Castagnone 2014; see also Paul 2011), if they are collected or publicly available at all, making comprehensive cross-national comparisons virtually impossible.
Data limitations aside, there is an important set of substantive issues that is perhaps the greatest source of uncertainty with respect to duration of residence. While migration from new-accession to EU-15 countries is not exactly permanent (Blanchflower and Lawton 2008; Dustmann and Weiss 2007; Green et al. 2007), neither is it a one-time event. Instead, it is often a circular or repeated process (Dustmann and Weiss 2007; Quinn 2011; Sumption and Somerville 2010; White 2011; Zaiceva and Zimmermann 2012). Prior research has detailed several arrangements that generate circular migration, including, for example, seasonal household employment, e.g., as an au pair, and agricultural work (DeWaard 2013; Green et al. 2007; Sumption and Somerville 2010). While many persons from new-accession countries return home to their countries of origin, many cycle back to EU-15 countries at multiple points over the life course. Consequently,the duration of “current stays” in EU-15 countries does not capture the lived experience of persons from new-accession countriesthat results from a series of “completed stays” (Green et al. 2007:73).
While the distinction between the duration of current and completed residence is helpful, in the context of migration from new-accessionto EU-15 countries, estimatingthe duration of completed residenceis problematic for at least three reasons. First, since only about ten years have passed since EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007, it is an open question whether this is a sufficient amount of time to glimpse the totality or even a significant portion of circular or repeat migration. Second, persons from new-accession countries are disproportionately young; about two-thirds of persons from new-accession countries living in the EU-15 are between the ages of 15 and 34, compared to about one-third of natives (Brücker and Damelang 2009). Importantly, many of these individuals are just entering the labour force, and, thus, have many years ahead of them to accrue time in EU-15 countries over the remainder of their lives. Finally, in shifting to a life course perspective, one mustaccount for the fact that non-migrants living in new-accession countries might, at various points in the life course, eventually select into migration to EU-15 countries, and will thereby accrue time in these destinations.
To address the issues above, we develop estimates of duration expectancy in EU-15 countries among persons from new-accession countries. Our work builds on previous research byDeWaard and Raymer (2012) and DeWaard (2013), but with a different and substantially improved set of harmonisedage-specific migration flow estimates obtained from the IMEM project, which incorporateda data measurement model, information from experts, and measures of uncertainty (Raymer et al. 2013; Wiśniowski et al. forthcoming). In what follows, we detail our approach to estimatingduration expectancy in EU-15 countries among persons from new-accession countries, including summary measures and the data and model used.
4. Summary Measures of Duration Expectancy
The key quantities of interest in this paper are conditional life expectancies at birthin each new-accession country.These life expectancies are calculated separately for each of seven periods (t = 2002, 2003,…, 2008) in our data.[6]They describe the experiences of synthetic cohorts and theirimplied hypothetical stationary populations.
Life expectancy at birth in each new-accession countryi, (i new-accession countries)can be partitioned into two components, each of which is a conditional life expectancy at birth.The first component,in-country life expectancy,, expresses the average number of years that persons from new-accession country icould be expected to live iniover the course of their lives given prevailing age patterns of country-to-country migration and mortality in period t. The second component,out-of-country life expectancy,, expresses the average number of years that these persons could be expected to live outside of i(denoted by “~i”)over their lives.These two quantities are additive, and sum to life expectancy at birth, , in new-accession country i (Rogers 1975, 1995).
Out-of-country life expectancy can be partitioned across any number of defined receiving countries j (j = 1, 2,...,K, for ij), such that expresses the average number of years that persons from new-accession country icould be expected to live in receiving country j based on period migration and mortality schedules.These quantities are additive, such that (for ij).While country j can be any receiving country, if we restrict the set of receiving countries to those in the EU-15, then (j EU-15 countries, for ij) isthe duration expectancy in EU-15 country jamong persons from new-accession country i.Further summing these quantities across receiving countries in the EU-15,can be interpreted as the duration expectancy in the EU-15 as a whole among persons from new-accession country i. These quantities, and ,are the quantities of interest in the current paper, and, as expectations, can be interpreted as averages that capture different types of migration, e.g., primary, return, and repeat.
5. Data and Methods
Data for this paper come from several sources. Data on migration come from the IMEM project (Raymer et al. 2013; Wiśniowski et al. forthcoming), and include age-specific distributions of counts of country-to-country migration for each pair of countries in the EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA), as well as a residual “rest of world” category, each year from 2002 to 2008. Age-specific death counts for EU/EFTA countries are taken from Eurostat, and, for the rest of the world, are derived from estimates provided by the United Nations (UN) by subtracting deaths in EU/EFTA countries from world totals. Because the model, described below, requiresinputs in the form of age-specific probabilities of country-to-country migration and death, age-specific population data for EU/EFTA countries are taken from Eurostat, and, for the rest of the world, are taken from the UN.
We estimate duration expectancy in EU-15 countries among persons from new-accession countries using a multiregional (or multistate) population model (Rogers 1975, 1995; Schoen 1975, 1988). First, we consider a birth cohort in new-accession country i, e.g., Bulgaria.Between the ages of zero and four, members of this cohort can remain in country i, migrate to another country in the EU/EFTA or the rest of the world, or die according to the age-specific probabilities of country-to-country migration and deathin our data. In the next age interval, five to nine years, members of this birth cohort, who now reside not only in country i, but also in other countries in the EU/EFTA and the rest of the world, migrate and die according to the observed age-specific probabilities of country-to-country migration and death. We then repeat this process sequentially foreach and every age interval until this cohort has died out. Along the way, we record the number of person-years lived by this cohort in each EU/EFTA country and the rest of world. In conjunction with information on the size of the initial birth cohort in new-accession country i, duration expectancyis estimated as follows:
(1)
In (1), is the total number of person-years lived in receiving country j beyond age zero (i.e., birth) by members of, in our case, a synthetic cohort born in country i; and refers to the size of the birth cohort in i. Because summary estimates of duration expectancy are generated separately for each new-accession country i one at a time, the size of is arbitrary, and is set to 100,000 in the current paper (Palloni 2001).