Migration potential in Slovakia

This paper argues that there is little danger of a flood of migrants from Slovakia once Slovakia has joined the European Union. Slovak migration generally fits into a new pattern of migration in Central and Eastern Europe, which is one of short term border crossings to shop, study or earn money, rather than permanent migration. The article undertakes further analysis of the Migration Potential Survey carried out by the International Organisation for Migration in 1998 (N for Slovakia = 974) along with the New Democracies Barometer for the same year (N for Slovakia=1001). Slovakia is compared with the other neighbouring accession countries of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Using multivariate analysis, the authors consider both pull and push factors along with reasons for NOT migrating (keep factors). They find that in Slovakia very few people (less than 10%) are seriously interested in migrating and for these, pull factors are more important than push factors. However, there are very strong ties, which keep Slovak citizens from going abroad for any length of time. Younger and more educated Slovaks show most interest in migrating. The rest of the articles consider reasons why migration potential from the Slovak Republic is so low, despite the low wages there relative to neighbouring Germany and Austria. They indicate that Slovakia is increasingly being drawn into global and transnational forms of migration and migration policies.