Romanian communities in the fields of migration experiences*

Dumitru Sandu, University of Bucharest

First draft of the paper prepared for the Workshop Common European Economic Space and
Migration, IMISCOE 7th Annual Conference, Liege, September 14th 2010

*Source research for the paper is the project Development of Community Capital in Romania
CNCSIS 2068 (2009-2011)

Summary
The paper is intended to present the key role of local communities in the dynamic of Romanian
economic emigration in the last two decades. Communities are structuring agents in the fields
constituted by stocks of migration experience. Economic determinants and consequences of migration
constitute a special focus of the analysis
The study proposes an integration of economic emigration into the theoretical frames of migration
fields and community capital. These fields are far from those that were invoked into old gravitational
models of migration. They are conceived to be multilevel (individual, household, community,
regional and trans/national), multistreams (internal-external, permanent-temporary, circularnoncircular etc.), multicapital structured and space-time bounded. Relations between emigration
variables on the one hand and other types of variables, on the other hand, describe different types of
migration fields.
Three hypotheses that have been tested with ethnographic village data from 2001 are retested with
more powerful data of the regular census. It is confirmed and detailed the idea the transnational
emigration from rural communities Romania of the 2000s is highly embedded into community capital
parameters and the national migration system. At the same time, an exploratory finding brings forth
the fact that temporary work emigration connects differently to community capital variables function
of the region. Five regional types of migration fields are documented. Two new hypotheses are also
tested and indicate a) a declining role of the local labour markets in influencing work emigration and
b) an increasing role of the personal/household experience of migration versus community one. New
regional patterns in the structuring of the migration fields are revealed.
Migration experience at community level has long lasting, delayed effects, of positive (increase in
housing construction) and negative nature (lower values of financial resources in local public buget).
Path analysis, with and without latent variables, is the main empirical approach. Multilevel nature of
the data sets is handled by adopting necessary corrections for lack of independence of observations in
some cases. Two sections of empirical analysis operate with data for all the rural communes of the
country, collected by standard population census and key informants community census. One section
builds on survey microdata, merged with census data aggregated at community level.

How relevant are local communities, compared to individuals and families, for emigration? Their
poverty favours emigration. Does this involve that the emigration rates reach maximum levels for
poorest localities in a society? A strong mark of poverty is unemployment. Does this involve that the
profile of the local labour market is the key conditioning factor for economic emigration? What is the
relation between economic factors versus the sociocultural ones in conditioning the more or less
temporary
emigration
(indefinite
time
emigration?
1

)? Employment opportunities and human capital profile of communities are relevant for the
economic movement of the population. When, how and for how long they play a significant role in
the economic migration process? This is the family of questions I will address in the paper for the
case of Romanian emigration in the last two decades. Special attention is given to the economic
determinants and consequences of work emigration.
Part of the answers to such questions is included into previous analyses. Romanian economic
emigration after 89 was treated mainly in terms of emerging transnational spaces (Sandu, 2005),
scientific diasporas (Nedelcu, 2008, Nedelcu 2009), transnational networks (Potot, 2003, Serban and
Voicu 2010), zero point exodus of Saxons and their multiplicative effects ( Stanculescu and
Berevoescu 1999; Michalon, 2009), intentions to return (erban, Voicu, 2010) and home orientation
of immigrants as measured by sent home remittances, intentions to return and media communication
between immigrants and people in sending societies (Sandu 2010a), development or modernisation
factor in origin communities (Anghel 2009, Sandu 2010b).
Building on the findings of these researches is a difficult task not only due to the diversity of topics
they addressed but also in connection with the absence of an adequate theoretical framework. On the
other hand, Romanian work emigration got momentum especially after 1997-1999, a first period of
recession after 1989. The phenomenon is rather new and the number of studies to address it is not so
large. The strategy to cope with the situation will be to propose a theoretical frame to understand the
dynamic of Romanian economic emigration after 1989 and to re-analyse some data sets that could
help to answer formulated questions. Findings of the previous researches will be integrated on the
road. A favouring factor for constructing in a cumulative way is given by the fact that a large number
of the studies on Romanian economic emigration are community oriented (Anghel 2009, Cingolani
2009, Elrik and Ciobanu 2009, Sandu 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010a, Serban 2009).
Studies on the same family of topics for other countries could give a certain background for the
answer. A large survey on a sample of about 5000 households in 25 Western Mexican communities
revealed that community characteristics are significant predictors for migration to US. Probability of
first trip for undocumented migrants to US increases for communities with larger shares of people
earning twice minimum wages, of emigrants in US and women in manufacturing (Massey and
Espinosa 1997:960). A dominant agrarian profile of the community favours also emigration. The
agrarian profile and the network capital of community increases also the probability for one more trip
in US but economic profile of community is no more significant (Massey and Espinosa 1997:971).
Some of these findings are not very sure due to possible technical problems in data analysis
2
.
The fact that community context plays a different role for documented migrants compared to
undocumented one in the above mentioned Mexican case suggests that what in fact counts is the
3

relation between the individual and community profile. Work emigration for undocumented migrants
is disfavoured by higher earnings in origin community, for example, but the reverse is true for
documented movers.
The principle solution to cope with problems mentioned in the previous paragraphs is to consider, on
the one hand, well specified and genuine multilevel models and, on the other hand, to examine fields
of migration embedding different types of spatial movement (commuting, temporary emigration, outmigration, immigration, in-migration, return migration from abroad, return migration for other
localities in the country, short and long term leave movements etc.). It is what I will do in the paper
after specifying the concept of migration field.
Embedding work mobility analysis the frameworks of migration fields and community capital
Social fields in transnational migration research have been conceptualised as a set of multiple
interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas, practices, and resources are
unequally exchanged, organized, and transformed (Levitt and Schiller, 2004: 1009). Migration field
in this paper is conceived as a specific type of social field, as a set of social actions, phenomena,
events or processes that are rooted into migration experiences of a set of actors. The actors of such
fields could be individuals, families, social groups or communities. The concept is worded as in old
approaches of gravity models but its meaning is different. Those models keep close to the analogy of
physical space with streams of migrants as structuring forces of the field. Human agency is absent in
that kind of approaches 3. The fields I am referring here are in interactionist vein, with clusters of
actions, interactions and relations of human agents. They are
multilevel, by agency at individual, household, organizational and community levels,
multistreams - constituted of movements that are internal-external, of emigration or
immigration, in-migration or out-migration, permanent or temporary, short long or
indefinite time etc.,
multicapital structured around dimensions of community capital - economic, social, cultural,
political, vital, or of accessibility type,
and space-time bounded.
Migration fields are generated by people who interact in specific way due to their common,
complementary or competitive trans-local movement experiences. A simple set of interconnected
streams of migration could be considered from system or field perspective. The system approach
looses the actors in favour of the coherence of abstract aggregates of streams type. The field lenses
keep focus on actors and actions of the people that engender the streams. Transnational view could
consider migration fields in a very specific way, with special interest for the connections immigrants
have at home. Sometimes, such views escape methodological nationalism in favour of
transnationalism but loos the roots of international migration in the national migration systems.
In fact, there are three basic types of approaches to the structuring of migration fields (inter)action,
phenomena and process ones. The most common is the approach by migration streams that are
collection of similar movements (events) between origin-destination pairs of localities. These are
examples of phenomenon approach. Transnational entrepreneurship is an example of cluster of
actions, relations and interactions between people in host and origin countries of migration. Sending
remittances is another example of interactions immigrants develop with people from origin
community. On the other hand, the study of remittances could be part of a phenomenon approach if
the focus is on aggregated volumes of incoming remittances in a certain country. Change of different
phenomena or inter (actions) illustrate the process approach.
4

Different actions, relations, events, phenomena or processes constitute a migration field to the degree
they are connected by the fact of being grounded into similar or connected migration experiences.
The key variable to describe a migration field is migration experience. Individual and community
levels of such experiences are measured by nominal or metric scales, by survey or census data for
different types of migration. These variables are put in relation among them and with different
antecedent and consequence variables (by qualitative or quantitative approaches) as to identify the
configuration migration streams in different fields.
Sending local communities in migration process could be considered as a container or as a matrix
(Gottdiener 1997). The first view involves a reference to the sending spaces as place of potential
migrants, left behind families of emigrants or return migrants. The second approach look closer to the
profile of sending communities as more or less relevant for conditioning emigration, return or
communication between emigrants and their relatives at home. The implied point of view in this
approach is that migration is selective not only at individual but also at community level (Sandu
2007): some profiles of communities are more favourable than others to attracting immigrants or
favouring emigration. There is also a third perspective on communities as agency in migration.
Network capital of the people from the same locality is a community resource that can be poor or
richer and be used as a direct resource for emigration. Twining between origin and destination
localities is another example of possible involvement of local communities as agents in the migration
process. Matrix view of community space is also consistent with the approach in terms of
community capital. This is an emerging concept adopted in migration research (Massey, Goldring,
Durand 1994) and in community development. The way it is operationalized could be different but the
involved ideas of system approach of development resources are basic:
The Community Capitals Framework (CCF) offers a way to analyze community and economic
development efforts from a systems perspective by identifying the assets in each capital (stock),
the types of capital invested (flow), the interaction among the capitals and the resulting impacts
across capitals. ..Analysis includes indicators of seven different components of community
capital: natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial and built capitals. (Emery and Flora,
2006: 20).

Data and method

Starting from the above questions and theoretical considerations one can proceed to presenting an
image of the migration fields structured around Romanias communes (next two sections). Last
section on economic consequences of emigration works with multilevel data, at individual, household
and community levels.
Community data (Table 1) comes from two sources. The basic one is the 2002 regular census on
population and housing of the National Institute of Statistics, with aggregation at the level of the basic
administrative units of the country - communes. Micro data involved in multilevel analysis come from
surveys of Soros Foundation on representative samples at national level (Living abroad on a
temporary basis in 2006 and Public Opinion Barometer, last wave in the series, from October 2007).
The survey from 2006 is the most complex one that was done in the country on economic migration
of Romanian abroad on a national sample of 1400 households and on two regional samples in one
area of longer emigration experience (Focsani, Vrancea county, 400 households) and another in an
area of shorter emigration history (Alexandria , Teleorman county, 400 households). The survey from
2007 is allowed for a good measure of the economic status. That was estimated by a factor score of
5

four items referring to the number of modern durable goods in the household (car, TV, cable TV, fix
phone, mobile phone, computer, internet access), at least a household associate to a business, personal
account to a bank and personal card to do electronic payments.
Table 1. Variables for analysis at locality level

Name of the variable

Long term emigrants*

Short term emigrants*
Emigration for work
Emigration for nonemployment reasons
Returned migrants from
abroad**
Return migrants from cities
Commuters
In-migration rate
Mean age adults
Salaried people*
Gymnasium graduation

Mean

Stand.
Dev.

Minimum

Maximum

10.5

172.1

7.7

14.7

232.8

4.7

10.9

169.5

2.9

6.2

166.1

Rate of emigrants that returned , recoreded in 2001

11.7

28.9

486.1

Return migrants from cities to 1000 inhabitants, 2002

Commune to city commuters to 1000 inhabitants, 2002
Internal in-migration rate, 2006-2008, cities and
communes
Mean age of the people of 18 years old or more, 2000
Salaried people in commune to 1000 inhabitants , 2002
Share of gymnasium educated people (%), 2002

12.8
86.6

8.8
67.5

0
0

71.5
887.2

58,6

30,7

519

47
159.5
35

3.6
70.7
6.6

35.9
25.3
5.6

61.8
475.5
69.4

14.3

4.4

1.5

30.1

-2.5

67.6

48

79

13.6

23.3

99.8

50

14

12

125

Description of the variable

People that are temporarily abroad of more than one
year to 1000 inhabitants , 2002
People that are temporarily abroad of less than one
year to 1000 inhabitants, 2002
People that are abroad , of less than one year, for work
reasons, 2002
People that are abroad , of less than one year, for nonemployment raesons (visits to relatives, accomaning
members of the family etc.), 2002

Vocational school graduation Share of vocational school educated people (%), 2002
Education stock
Life expectancy
Religious minorities*

Social development index of

locality

Factor score of the shares of primary, gymnasium,

vocational school, high school and higher education, 2002
Life expectancy at birth, 1999
Share of people that are not members of the dominant
orthodox religious group (%), 2002
Factor score of medium age, life expectancy at birth,
education stock, private cars to 1000 inhasbitants, gas
consumption by inhabitant, average area pe dwelling,
interaction variable between residence type (urban-rural)
and the size of locality. For easier reading the factor
score is converted into a Hull score variable with a
mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 14. Data for
cities and rural communas, 2008.

Income from internal sources*

Income from internal sources in the local buget of

locality to 1000 inhabitants (national currency, RON).
Cities and communes, 2007

357

309

61

5650

Expenses for public services in

local bugets*

Expenses for public services in local bugets to 1000

inhabitants (national currency, RON). Cities and
communes, 2007

134

178

2938

Data source: National Institute of Statistics (NIS). Population and dwellings census for 2002, and vital statistics
for other years. Own computations. Unless otherwise specified, computations are for N=2686 communes.
Means and standard deviations are computed without weighting with the population of locality. * Logarithmic
transformation in path model. ** Data source: Community Census of Migration, 2001 (IOM, GOR). All the
indicators on migration count migrants not events of migration as in usual demographic rates. The only indices
that are not computed by the author are those referring to mean age and life expectancy at birth. They are
produced by National Institute of Statistics.

The number of returned migrants recorded in 2001 resulted from the community census of migration
(Sandu 2005). The index of social development of locality is a factor score aggregation involving
measures of human, social, material and vital capital of the community, using vital statistics data for
2008. This is a good proxy for the concept of community capital for the Romania. It functions very
well as a significant predictor of economic status at individual-family level (Table 3). Compared to
6

other local development indicators that are used in the research practice in Romania (Sandu, Voineag,
Panduru 2009), that one has the advantage of being able to work with the same algorithm for cities
and for communes. It is particularly suited to cover analysis needs for rural and urban data in
multilevel models.
The first global picture of the work emigration from Romania, after 1989, was taken in NovemberDecember 2001 by a community census of migration: key informants from almost all the villages of
the country (12300, out of about 12700 villages in rural communes ) provided, on the basis of a
questionnaire, detailed information on temporary emigrants and returned migrants (Sandu 2000 4,
2005). About 13200 key informants used their local knowledge to describe, according to a given
protocol, the migration and development profile of their villages. The key outcome of the research
indicated that migration history of the village counts a lot. The intensity of temporary emigration was
higher for villages with a more structured migration experience as measured by the relative number of
returned migrants from cities in the 1990s and by the share of villagers that had village to city
commuting experience in the communist period (Sandu 2005: 577). It was not only the migratory
profile of the villages that conditioned temporary emigration but also the development profile of it.
More than one fifth of the villages had a very high prevalence rate (more than 30 at the community
census moment). Three quarters of the temporary emigrants at that moment were concentrated in
those high prevalence communities. The significant predictors of belonging to that category of
villages are indicative for the community selectivity of work emigration. High prevalence villages had
a very specific profile with higher stock of community capital (Sandu 2005:579)
social capital approximated by the percentages of religious minorities5
general human capital indicated by education stock ,
particular human capital in migration signified by larger share of people with significant
internal migration experience (as village to city commuters or as return migrants from cities),
vital capital associated with a larger share of young people,
location or regional capital considered to be higher for central village within commune and for
villages close to a European road and to a larger city.
Even if attractive from the sociological point of view, that village picture of migration fields involve
at
least
four
methodological
challenges
related
to:
a) ethnographic method: to what degree the community census of migration is affected by the bias of
key
informants
culture
(ethnographic
method
challenge);
b) highly heterogeneous units of analysis: what are consequences of doing analysis on villages that are
not administrative units like communes and have a huge variation of size, from a couple of inhabitants
to
about
30
thousands
inhabitants
(village
status
challenge);
c) the missing predictor: what are the consequences of not asking key informants about the local
labour
market,
a
key
factor
in
emigration
(labour
market
challenge);
d) the aggregated dependent variable: what are the consequences of ignoring the difference between
long
and
short
term
temporary
emigration
(aggregation
challenge).

The possibility to react to these challenges is provided by accessing much latter the data of a standard
population and dwellings census. That regular census was done three months later after the
community census of migration, in March 2002, by the National Institute of Statistics.
The current study replicates at commune level, using regular census data (Table 1), the village
analysis based on 2001 community census data and expands its approach by a multilevel approach.
7

The changes in the new model of analysis could reduce the risks implied into the approach at village
level: the model is better specified by introducing the number of salaried people to 1000 inhabitants as
proxy for local labour market situation; the stock of emigrants is disaggregated into long (more than
one year) and short term (less than one year) leave; the unit of analysis is commune as cluster of
several villages into the same administrative unit 6; data are no more the result of door to door
recording and not of an ethnographic method using key informants. Another improvement in the new
model is related to the fact that education as explanatory variable is disaggregated into vocational and
gymnasium type. Age also is better measured by average age of the adult population instead of taking
only the proportion of elder people.
The initial hypotheses formulated for ethnographic village date (Sandu 2000:8-9) were meant to test
the relevance of main theories of migration for the case of the emerging transnational migration from
Romania in the years 2000s. These hypotheses - retested with more powerful data collected by the
regular census of 2002 support the ideas that temporary emigration from rural communes
A.is higher from high social, human and vital capital localities (community capital hypothesis),
B. is part of a national migration system and could be understood only in relation with it
(migration system hypothesis),
C. is internally determined by cumulative effects of earlier waves with the new ones and by
multiplicative effects of earlier migration networks (cumulative causation hypothesis).
Two new hypotheses are added:
D.local labour market effects have a declining influence of successive waves of emigration
(declining labour market influence);
E. personal and household migration experience tends to get more importance than community
experience in determining the economic effects of migration (hypothesis of the
personal/household experience of migration).
The D hypothesis starts from the idea that once consolidated; the culture of transnational migration
tends to act in a more powerful way than the local labour market for countries like Romania (that have
a rather low average income in the European context). The E hypothesis stems from the idea that
information and culture of work emigration are more and more available and the differential factors
are more and more associated with another factor, with personal or household experience of
migration.
Migration experience at individual-household level is structured in the space of some basic polarities:
personal vs. for the other members of the household, past vs. future (intention) experience, work vs.
nonwork experience of migration. The ordering hypotheses for building a typology of personal
migration experience consider that:
personal work experience of return migrants is the most powerful one by its consequences,
the second-degree impact situation is the absence of personal work experience compensated by
work abroad of at least one other member of the household,
the third type in that hierarchy is that of intention emigrant without personal or family
experience in the area,
8

 the fourth type is that of a person without any personal or family work experience or intention
to emigrate but with a certain practice in living abroad by non-work reasons,
the reference type is that of a person living in a household without any experiences of the above
mentioned nature.
The five types of migration experience at the level of the 2007 survey data that are used in the last
section of the paper have the shares of 9 % personal work experience, 15 % only some other members
of the household worked abroad, 6 % no emigration experience of emigration in the household but the
respondent intention to leave for work, 12 % respondents that have only experience of living abroad
for non employment reasons and, finally 58 %persons without none of the above experiences in the
household.

Migration fields structured around rural communes

A basic finding from the path analysis at national level on all the rural communes (Figure 1) is that
internal migration experience continues to be a significant predictor of temporary emigration even if
one controles for labor market situation. The relation is, as expected, a time bounded one: return
migration in the commune from cities stimulated emigration only in the early stages of the process,
for long term emigrants. The intensity of more recent emigration is no more impacted by the share of
returned migrants from cities.
High rates of commune to city commuting stimulate both long and short term emigration propensities
but with a much lower impact for the most recent streams of emigration. The declining influence of
that form of internal economic movement is consistent with the process recorded for return migration
from cities to communes. The relation with the data from village level has a different sens: villages
with higher rates of commuting ar the census moment seemd to have a lower propensity for
emigration. It was only commuting experience of the village in early 1990 that stimulated emigration.
The differences between the two models at village and at comune levels could be an effect of the
better specification in the approche with regular census data. The interpretaion is supported by the
difference between direct and indirect effects in path model. The direct standardised effect of
commuting on long term emigration is positive (0.23) and the indirect one, through the medium of
employment, is a negative and smaller one ( -0.10). That means that having a job as commuter
decreases the probbaility to leave the community for working abroad but the experience of movment
and the information collected in the city on migration advantages increases the probability to leave.
Movement experience and information as a commuter seems to count more than the fact of having a
job for the communities .
A good labor situation indicated by a higher rate of salaried people reduces the propensity of
emigration from commune. This type of impact is a declining one, from high values in early stages of
emigration (the case of long term leave) to low or insignificant ones for later stages (casis of short
term leave). The finding suggests that the dynamics of work emigration from rural areas is less and
less impacted by the local economic situation and depends more and more on the internal dynamics of
emigration. High waves of previous emigration brings in higher waves of recent time leaves for work
abroad.
9

Education does not impact emigration in an unique way. Form of the education counts: vocational
education had a larger impact on emigration in the early stages of the process; later on, with more and
more emigrants in a contagion pattern, large shares of vocational educated people did not count any
more for increasing the propensity of emigration at commune level. Gymnasium education declined
slightly, in time, in its impact on the community rates .
The role of religious groups in emigration is reflected in a similar way in the two approaches , at
village and at commune level. The fact of being member of a local community with large shares of
people included into minority churches is supportive for higher emigrating rates. Village data indicate
that religious identity counts more than the ethnic one in increasing the probbaility of a village to
belong to the categhory of villages of high prevalence rate (Sandu, 2005:579). The finding is
replicated by communes data. Why is so? It is knowen that network capital (see note 5 above) is
higher for the communities with larger share of religious minorities groups (different from the
Christian Orthodox majority). In some cases emigration is facilitated not only by personal or family
network capital but also by institutional capital: churches from origin community are in direct
connection with those from destination and exchange informations and services to facilitate the
movments of their beivers. Local community studies support dirtectly such a view: Adventists from
Crangeni village (Radu 2001 ) and from Dobrotesti (Serban and Grigoras, 2000) in the South of the
country and Pentecostals from Feldru village in Transylvania (Elrik and Ciobanu, 2009) were among
the pioneers of emigration from their villages.
Model run in AMOS on a file of 2686
communas, using 2002 census data,
provided by National Institute of
Statistics. Data could be considered as
associated to a sample only in a
conventional way, as sample in time
(measurement at one moment). All the
coefficients are standardized and
significant estimates for p=0.01. Model
fit data very well: TLI=0.97, CFI=0.99,
RMSEA=0.048 and Hoelter index for
p=0.05 is 690. The indicator
CMIN/DF=7.14 is a bit higher than
indicated (about 5) for a good fit. The
fact could be an outcome of the large
volume of the data set. Six arrows for
the correlations among exogenous
variables have been omitted from the
diagram: mean age with vocational
school and gymnasium school;
religious minorities with vocational
school, gymnasium school and mean
age; vocational school graduation with
gymnasium graduation.

Figure 1.Path diagram of the migration streams recoreded at the commune level 7
10

The age structure of the commune seems to be less and less relevant for emigration. Communities
with higher shares of young people sent abroad more emigrants in the early stages of migration . For
more recent streams the connection is much weeker ( Figure 1). The trend is consistent with the
process of declining selectivity of emigration as recorded with survey microdata (Sandu 2010a:92).
Emigration in community capital framework, by historical regions

Census data give, in fact, stocks, not real flows, well specified in time periods and space. People from
a certain community that are temporary abroad to work could be considered as bearers of a specific
form of human and social capital that is part of community capital. Until they leave in a permanent
way one can consider them as community agents that use their human capital by working abroad and
developing their social capital in destination and home networks. Reconceptualising migration in
terms of socio-human capital could help to integrate the phenomenon in the series of community
capital forms. The new conceptualisation makes even more obvious that fact that local development
plays different roles at regional level for temporary emigration (Figure 2).
long term
emigrants

short term short term

returnd
total
sallaried
work
non-work
emigrants emigrants people
emigrants emigrants

social
develop.
index

12.5

9.7

3.2

13.8

39.2

33

48

1.4

1.2

8.3

12.8

35.9

45

MUNTENIA

2.3

1.8

6.1

11.2

56.2

49

DOBROGEA

3.9

3.2

3.2

10.9

21.1

77.5

52

3.8

11.8

25.6

65.2

56

CRISANAMARAMURES

6.9

10.8

9.1

31.8

58.4

53

TRANSILVANIA

5.3

6.2

5.4

21.9

38.8

57.8

55

Ilfov-BUCURESTI

1.1

0.8

1.4

2.8

6.1

176.2

71

5.5

11.7

26.3

52.2

50

MOLDOVA
OLTENIA

BANAT

Total

Data source for current emigrants - National Institute of Statistics, Census of Population and
Housrages by region ,, 2002. Data on returned migrants are from Community Census of Migration
2001 (Sandu 2005) . All migration indices are rates to 1000 rural inhabitants . Social development
index of localities is computed by 2008 data . Table presents in the last column communas
averages by region, weighted by number of inhabitants.

Figure 2. Historical regions of Romania and their migration and development profiles
Regional development level per se does not seem to be a very powerful explanatory factor for the
intensity of emigration experience. Very different regions by development level have similar
emigration experiences and similar ones under development level have different prevalence rates.
Illustrative for the first situation are the cases of Moldova and Transilvania. Their prevalence rate was
rather equal in the 2000s but the socio-economic development in the countryside was much higher in
Transilvania compared to Moldova. In the South of the country, the neighbouring regions of Muntenia
and Dobrogea have similar average development for their communes but emigration experience was
much higher in Dobrogea compared to Muntenia.
The regional patterns of emigration, on the contrary, appears to be more related to a combination of
factors - cultural composition of the population, development level and location versus the Western
border of the country. The highest rate of return migrants is in Transilvania, a central region of the
country, with high ethnic and religious heterogeneity (in the context of the country), with rather
11

developed villages. That is the region where from originated a large stream of permanent emigration
of the Saxons towards Germany in early 1990. They opened a kind a corridor of work emigration
towards Austria, Germany, and France etc. Another driving force for high temporary emigration is
related to the fact that about 23% of the regions population (compared to a share of about 6-7% at the
country level), in 2002, was formed by ethnic Hungarians with high propensity to work in Hungary.
All these factors contributed to make from Transilvania the region with the earliest waves of
permanent and temporary emigration from the country. That historical factor combined with the fact
that social development of its localities is rather high contributed to have there the highest return
migration rate in the 2000s. Moldova region has an opposite profile low development and low share
of ethnic minorities. The share of religious minorities (people that are not Christian Orthodox) was of
about 9% in 2002, lower than in Transilvania (31%) but significantly higher than in the two largest
regions of Muntenia (2%) and Oltenia (1%) from the South of the country. All these factors
contributed to have in a later work emigration from Moldova. The rate of return migration is much
lower than in Transilvania.
Another conclusion from examining the regional patterns of emigration is that one can identify five
patterns of regional temporary emigration:
A.Rich non-borders areas of longer migration history and high return migration. This is the case
of Transilvania.
B. Rich border areas of high, short term, circular migration (Banat and Crisana-Maramures).
C. Poor areas of high, long term temporary emigration (Moldova).
D.Middle or lower middle developed areas of shorter migration history with mid-levels
emigration rates (Oltenia and Muntenia).
E. Peri-urban rural areas of capital city of low emigration (Ilfov area surrounding Bucharest).
Dobrogea, the small region bordering Black See is a heterogeneous one, formed by one rich
(Constanta) and one poor (Tulcea) county. Figures here could be misleading. Its pattern is somewhere
between the types D and B. Considering its geographical proximity to Muntenia I will include it in the
grouping of South regions that are predominantly of type D.
The regional patterns of migration will be considered for four out of the five mentioned types, given
up the case of areas surrounding the capital city with a very low emigration and rather small number
of localities. A path model put in connection emigration experience with different forms of economic,
social, human, socio-human or vital capital at community level (Figure 3 for all the communes of the
country and regional versions at Table A 1).
Temporary emigration from Romania of the 2000s was higher from communities that were rich in
social capital, socio-human capital of internal migration, health form of human capital and vital or
demographic capital (large share of youth). Economic capital does not seem to play a significant role
for emigration socio-human capital (Figure 3) at the rural national level. The image is different at
regional level (Table A 1): higher employment in poorer East and South regions favours emigration
and disfavours it in more developed regions from Central and Western regions. Why is so? A survey
on about 800 Romanian immigrants in Madrid area in 2008 indicated clearly that immigrants from
Romania will consider returning at home not simply by getting jobs. They think the return as well as
the initial leave from the country in terms of having a well-paid job (Sandu 2010a). That finding
12

suggest that having more jobs in poor area of the country, like Moldova and Oltenia, especially, does
not contribute to reducing emigration because these are badly paid jobs. In more developed areas, like
Transilvania or Banat, there is an increased chance of having better paid jobs and more developed
localities. In such conditions an increase in the number of jobs could reduce the propensity to
emigrate.
Another indicator that keeps the same regional pattern is life expectancy at birth, significant for vital
capital or for social development of locality. Propensity for emigration in East and South poorer
regions is higher for more socially developed communities (having higher life expectancy) but is not
dependent on the level of community social development in the Central and Western regions. Higher
economic and social resources at community level stimulate emigration in East and South regions
much more than in the rest of the country. The propensity of temporary emigration is dependent of
community characteristics to a much higher degree in poor areas of high emigration (Moldova) than
in richer areas of higher return attraction (Transilvania) 8.
Education stock is negatively related to temporary emigration (Figure 3). Apparently the fact is at
odds with the image given by the results of analysis from Figure 1 where gymnasium and vocational
school shares of educated people seemed to favour long and short term emigration. The contradiction
is apparent because in the second diagram education is measured in a more comprehensive way. Here
was used a factor score with the shares of people that graduated primary school, gymnasium,
vocational schools, high schools and higher forms of education. The negative sense of the coefficient
in the diagram indicates simply that the highest rates of emigration were not from the communes with
very high stocks of education.

Model run in AMOS, on a file

of 2686 communes, using 2002
census data, provided by
National Institute of Statistics.
All
the
coefficients
are
standardized. All are significant
for p=0.01, excepting the one
referring to the relation between
salaried people and temporary
emigration. Model fit data very
well: TLI=0.95, CFI=0.98,
RMSEA=0.063 and Hoelter
index for p=0.05 is 449. The
indicator
CMIN/DF=11.0,
higher than indicated (about 5)
for a good fit.

Figure 3.Path diagram of temporary emigration as phenomenon of restructuring community

capital
The pattern of relation between education and emigration is the same as at the national level only for
the poorest region, for Moldova. In West and Central regions, especially (and to a lesser degree in the
13

South), the relation is different: higher mean education at the commune level brings higher propensity
for emigration. Our data are aggregated ones and the ecological fallacy of inferring from locality to
individual level should be avoided. Supplementary analysis should be done to answer the implied
questions. Is the level of aspiration for higher educated people from West and Central regions higher
in the conditions of a better access to media in those regions compared to the access in Moldova? Are
the social capital returns of human capital higher in richer than in poor areas? These are questionshypotheses to be tested.
The impact of network capital (as estimated by the share of religious minorities in the community) on
emigration rates seems to have the same positive sense for all the regions. It is only in the West
regions that this impact is rather insignificant (Table A 1). Again, the finding deserves a special
investigation to get meaning. A possible hypothesis could consider the idea that for border regions
some supplementary specifications are necessary.
Economic consequences of migration experience at household and community level
Communities counts not only as structures favouring first emigration and supporting its continuations
by networks and culture. Once they are transformed by getting migration experience, they act as a
multiplier factor to generate other social, economic and cultural consequences. It was noted that there
are three intermediate variables that intervene in the change chain remittances, networks and
mentalities or deep culture of everyday life (Sandu, 2010b: 271). Adding to this physical separation
(breaking face to face social interactions) and selectivity in emigration would give a full list of the
intermediate variables inducing change by migration in communities. The idea that these are the key
intermediate variables is , in a way, also supported in the common sense sociology as revealed by a
large national survey (Sandu, 2006:59-60 ): more than half of Romanians believed in 2006 that it is
good that some people leave for work abroad; higher earnings are the main reason to consider that
emigration is a positive thing (70% of those having a positive perception of working abroad); the
reason for the negative view of the phenomenon is associated with separation, being far from home
and family (33% out of total mentioning a negative view). Change of mentality is also mentioned as a
positive outcome by a large share of the former migrants (61%) as compared to only 31% in the
households without any migration experience.
I will consider here only the economic consequences of indefinite time emigration and follow them,
primarily, function of migration experience at household and community levels. Labour force deficit
associated with emigration was documented for constructions, cloth industry and hotels/restaurants
(Serban, Toth , Stefanescu 2007) by a survey in 600 companies in the three mentioned domains.
Detailed approach at community/individual level is not available. Deficit of physicians is largely
debated in the media but, as far as I know, there is only partial systematic evidence of the problem
(see, for a review of the problem Marin and Serban 2008).
Local communities that had higher rates of temporary emigration in 2002 suffer the consequences of
that phenomenon even five years later. Local budget from internal sources is lower in their cases
(Table 2). Otherwise, local budget from internal sources tends to be higher for urban localities
attracting internal migrants and scoring higher ranks of
salaried employment and social
development. If one controls for internal and external migration and for the development level of
locality, regional differences among regions from the point of view of income sources are not so high.
Only Dobrogea, Transilvania and Ilfov-Bucharest recorded specific higher rates of income from
internal sources in local budget.
14

Investments from remittances contribute to an increase of the rate in new houses constructions at the
community level. The relation is present but its intensity is not so high (p=0.07).
Table 2.Predictors of economic consequences of temporary emigration at locality level

temporary emigration rate 2002 (ln transf.)

internal in-migration rate 2006-2008 (ln transf)
rate of temporary internal net migrants 2008
rate of sallaried people 2008 (ln transf.)
rate of commuters from locality , 2002
mean age of adult population 2009
index of social development of locality, 2008
urban locality in 2008 (1 yes, 0 no)
Moldova*
Muntenia*
Dobrogea*
Transilvania*
Crisana-Maramures*
Banat*
Bucuresti-Ilfov*
constante
R2
N

Income from local sources to

1000 inhabitants in local buget
2007 (ln transformation)

public expanses for services, new dwelling in locality

dwellings and public dev. to 2006-2008 to 1000
1000 inhab. , 2007 (ln
inhabitants 2006
transformation)

Coef.
-0.067
0.294
0.003
0.301
-0.001
0.013
0.010
0.122
-0.126
0.039
0.503
0.314
0.148
0.283
1.059
1.994
0.5
2853

Coef.
-0.057
0.304
-0.001
0.480
-0.002
0.018
0.007
0.061
0.193
0.349
0.952
0.578
0.569
0.827
0.747
-0.620
0.16
2849

P>t
0.000
0.000
0.019
0.000
0.013
0.059
0.000
0.018
0.227
0.709
0.004
0.011
0.152
0.331
0.000
0.000

P>t
0.096
0.000
0.678
0.000
0.002
0.056
0.040
0.511
0.233
0.030
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.364

Coef.
0.779
9.518
-0.007
-4.115
0.019
0.190
0.483
-6.884
3.843
1.617
3.855
-1.425
-2.124
-3.537
28.345
-47.054
0.21
2879

P>t
0.074
0.002
0.782
0.043
0.056
0.416
0.003
0.005
0.005
0.118
0.206
0.438
0.208
0.104
0.000
0.008

Primary data sources: Population and housing census, 2002, National Institute of Statistics (NIS), vital statistics
from NIS. OLS regression having communes and cities of the country as units of analysis. The clustering effect
of living in the same county was corrected by cluster option in OLS regression model, in STATA. Shawowed
coefficients are insignificant for p=0.05.

More than one quarter of the adult persons in the country had work experience abroad at the end of
2007 .About 57% out of the adult persons live in household where there was no emigration experience
(Table 3). Banat, Transilvania and Moldova were the regions with the largest shares of returned
migrants. This is a situation recorded by survey at the end of 2007 at the country level (Table 3) and is
consistent with the structure resulted from community census data in 2001 for rural communities
(Figure 2).
The fact is significant for a large inertia of migration structures over time at the country/regional level,
in spite of the level changes: the regions that in 2002 had large rates of non-work emigration abroad
were, five years later, among the regions with the largest shares of returned migrants (Transilvania
and Crisana-Maramures); Oltenia and Muntenia continues to be in 2007, like in 2002, the regions with
the lowest share of emigration experience.
Migration experience at the personal-household level influences significantly the entrepreneurial
orientation of the persons. That one is also considered, in the Romanian survey analysis, in a
typological way (Sandu 1999:100). Such an orientation could reach a maximum level for the persons
that are already employers or self-employed .In a decreasing ranking, the second category is that of
entrepreneurs by intention, persons that do not hold a business but plan to do it. The weakest
entrepreneurial orientation is in the case of the persons that only have the vague desire for such an
economic project, but no experience or structured intention.

15

Table 3. Types of migration experience in the households by historical regions, 2007 (%)
Type of migration experience at the household level
only other
nobody in the hhd only non-work
member(s) of worked abroad but experience of
respondent
the hhd. worked respondent intends living abroad for
worked
abroad
to go
the respondent
abroad

no migration
experience

Moldova

10

19

61

Total
100

Muntenia

17

62

100

Oltenia

13

66

100

Dobrogea

13

15

17

52

100

Transilvania

11

21

15

47

100

Crisana Maramures

13

26

54

100

Banat

16

17

14

45

100

Bucuresti

21

62

100

Total

15

12

58

100

Data source: Public Opinion Barometer of Open Society Foundation, October 2007, national representative
sample of 2000 adult, non-institutionalized persons, weighted data (For details on the sampling, see Sandu
2010a). Own computations. Rectangle marked figures indicate significant association between row and column
values, for p=0.05, according to the results of an analysis by adjusted standardized residuals. Cells marked by
shadow indicate significant negative associations between column and row values, using the above mentioned
type of analysis. Reading example: 66% out of the total persons interviewed in Oltenia region live in households
without any migration experience. This was the region with the lowest migration experience at the end of 2007.
The hypothesis of ordering the emigration experiences is specified in the footnote of the table A3.

Crossing entrepreneurial orientation with individual-family migration experience shows clearly that
the strongest orientation is specific for the persons that worked abroad. Entrepreneurship by intention
has higher probabilities to manifest for retuned migrants and for those having the intention to leave
for work abroad. The simple desire to open a business is specific to the persons with non-work
experience of migration abroad. And the lack of any entrepreneurial orientation is associated with lack
of any migration experience in the family (Table A 3). The bivariate relation could be suggestive for a
hypothesis but it cannot be taken as a convincing proof for testing it. A multivariate analysis could
help. It allow us to determine in a more precise way the role of migration experience, controlling for
other factors, on manifesting intentions to adopt different economic behaviours open a business,
take a loan from a bank, build or buy a house or do a professional reconversion (Table A 2). The
results of this analysis fully support the idea that direct or indirect migration experience of working
abroad favours significantly the adoption of active economic plans for business, credits or investing
for durable goods, irrespective of the context given by status characteristic (age, gender, human
capital resources, and network capital). Opening a business is influenced more by direct personal
experience of working abroad than by other forms of migration experience (someone else in the
household worked abroad, intention to emigrate, non-work experience of living abroad). For other
intentions of economic behaviours, the most important predictor in the category of migration
experience is the intention to work abroad9. This is a kind of restructuring of the economic behaviours
function of anticipatory socialization in the emigrant status.
It is not only the personal-family experience of migration that impacts future economic behaviours but
also the community culture associated with earlier times migration stocks at the local level. The
tendency in 2007 was that the probability of intentions to open a business to be higher in the
communities that had also higher short term emigration rates in early 2000. Intentions to buy or build
a house had the same kind of dependency of former migration experience of the community. The
16

finding is consistent with an analysis that showed that communes that had high emigration rates in
2002 recorded higher rates of newly built houses in the period 2003-2005, controlling for other
community characteristics (Sandu 2010b: 283).
The economic status of the person tends to be higher, under the ceteris paribus condition, if there is at
least one person in the household that worked or is working abroad (Table 3).The same positive
impact on the economic status is associated with higher human capital, having salary as the main
source of income and living in a city or in a commune that is not far from a city.
Table 4.Predictors of the level of the economic status
Coef.
P>t
-0.004
0.060
1.230
0.000
0.529
0.000
0.165
0.005
0.725
0.000
-0.093
0.099
0.177
0.015
-0.196
0.014
0.121
0.050
0.002
0.258

age
higher education*
high school*
vocational school*
post high school, short stage*
primary school*
salary main source of income*
pension main source of income*
migrants in the family*
temporary emigration rate 2002
index of social development of locality 2008
distance to the nearest city
constant
R2

0.004
-0.005
-0.480
0.370

0.017
0.000
0.008

Data
source:
Public
Opinion Barometer of
Open Society Foundation,
October
2007.
The
clustering effect of living
in the same locality was
corrected by cluster option
in OLS regression model,
in STATA. Distance to the
nearest city is coded 0 for
living in a city and, for
living in communas, by the
number of kilometers from
the central village of the
commune to the nearest
city.

Personal economic status tends, also, to be higher in the localities that are more developed from the
social point of view (see Table 1 for the construction of the index). Migration experience at the
community level does seem to be a relevant predictor for personal economic status. * Dummy
variables.

Conclusions
The study provided empirical evidence that local communities in Romania are significant
actors/structures for work emigration, in several instances. First of all, by their profile, they are an
important selectivity instance in the initiation of the process. Secondly, by their networks and culture ,
they could contribute to continuity or multiplication effects of previous movements. Thirdly,
transformed by migration, communities are an active factor promoting other changes in behaviours of
their inhabitants. There is also a fourth instance, which was not addressed in that paper: other
approaches proved that, for immigrants, origin local community has a significant identity power (see
details in Sandu 2010a).
Work emigration from Romania of the 2000s was highly integrated in the community capital
structures of the rural communes and in the national system of migration. All the three hypotheses that
were initially tested with ethnographic data (community capital, migration system and cumulative
causation hypotheses) are also supported by data produced by the regular census. The path models at
17

commune level that are better specified, compared to those at village level, fully supports the above
mentioned hypotheses. Local labour market that was not measured in village models seems to be a
relevant predictor of emigration but with a declining influence.
The regional variation of the interplay between emigration and community capital variables is
significant: high employment in more developed regions from Central and West parts of the country
contribute to reducing work emigration but has an opposite effect in less developed East and South
regions.
Multilevel analysis proves that it is not only personal experience of migration that influence economic
behaviours but also the simple fact of living in a household where other members worked abroad.
Even the intention to go to work abroad is positively correlated with adopting entrepreneurial plans.
Persons in the households with work emigration experience have a higher probability of an economic
status above the average. Such an experience plays a similar role with having higher human capital or
living in a developed locality. The aggregated experience of emigration at community level is not a
significant predictor of the personal economic status.
Work emigration has significant economic consequences on community life. Higher rates of
emigration are accompanied, at a certain time lag, by a decrease in the money resources in the local
budgets (Table 2). Emigration seems to contribute to a community decline of public resources and an
increase in private wealth (building new houses).

18

Annex
Table A 1. Unstandardized path coefficients in country and regional models on temporary emigration
and community capital
Related variables in the model
predicted
predictor
mean age
education stock <--adults
return migrants
mean age
<--from cities
adults
mean age
salaried people <--adults
religious
salaried people <--minorities
salaried people <--education stock
religious
life expectancy <--minorities
TEMPORARY
<--life expectancy
EMIGRATION
TEMPORARY
return migrants
<--EMIGRATION
from cities
TEMPORARY
<--salaried people
EMIGRATION
TEMPORARY
<--education stock
EMIGRATION
TEMPORARY
religious
<--EMIGRATION
minorities
TEMPORARY
mean age
<--EMIGRATION
adults
long
term
TEMPORARY
<--emigrants
EMIGRATION
short
term
TEMPORARY
<--emigrants
EMIGRATION
return migrants
<--life expectancy
from cities
life expectancy <--salaried people
return migrants
salaried people <--from cities
CFI
TLI
RMSEA
R2 for latent variable (TEMPORARY
EMIGRATION)

Models for..
Country Moldova

South

Transilvania West

-0.07

-0.068

-0.104

-0.073

-0.029

0.903

1.62

0.827

0.904

0.883

-0.025

-0.018

-0.048

-0.015

-0.021

0.043

0.003

0.022

0.005

0.055

0.321

0.47

0.245

0.286

0.287

-0.232

-0.227

-0.579

-0.086

-1.254

0.024

0.049

0.012

0.006

0.013

0.011

-0.001

0.004

0.013

0.009

0.037

0.857

0.117

-0.287

-0.788

-0.054

-0.217

0.073

0.142

0.131

0.323

0.289

0.261

0.295

0.007

-0.086

-0.023

-0.03

-0.082

-0.2

0.683

1.011

0.975

0.511

0.678

-0.117

-0.97

-0.083

-0.114

-0.746

0.756

0.998

1.237

1.355

0.857

-0.005

-0.006

-0.001

-0.002

-0.003

0.98.
0.95
0.061

0.99
0.98
0.048

0.98
0.95
0.065

0.93
0.8
0.12

0.96
0.89
0.09

0.26

0.28

0.5

0.38

0.44

For each column, the model has the configuration from figure 2. All the coefficients are significantly
different from zero, for p=0.05, excepting those that are shadowed. Variables are defined in table 1.
TEMPORARY EMIGRATION is a latent one. For Bucharest-Ilfov region the model could not be run due to
the fact that there are only a small number of constituting communes (37 according to administrative
division from 2002).
19

Table A 2. Logistic models of the intentions for investments and professional reconversion

em igration eperience in
the household (reference no experience)

human capital
variables

Dependent variable: intention, for the next 2-3 years, to.

community
emigration
experience

man*
age
higher educated*
high school*
vocational school*
post high scool, short term*
knows a foreign language*
knows to use internet*
index of durable goods in the
household
satisfied of own health*
returned migrant*
only another person in the
family has emigration
no emigration experience, only
the plan of the respondent to
go for work
non of the above, only nonwork experience abroad of the
respondent
network capital of the
respondent
rate of short term emig. In
locality 2002
rate of long term emigration in
locality, 2002
respondent member of a
religious minority
R2

open a
business
Odds
Ratio P>z
1.49 0.01
0.96 0.00
1.55 0.13
1.59 0.04
1.40 0.18
0.91 0.78
0.94 0.13
0.98 0.94

take a loan build/buy a do a professional

from a bank
house
reconversion
Odds
Odds
Odds
Ratio P>z Ratio P>z
Ratio
P>z
0.91 0.49
0.94 0.69
0.75
0.07
0.97 0.00
0.95 0.00
0.93
0.00
2.39 0.00
1.79 0.06
0.65
0.18
2.06 0.00
1.19 0.45
1.23
0.42
1.82 0.01
1.78 0.01
1.57
0.07
2.34 0.00
1.39 0.21
1.47
0.27
1.00 0.96
0.95 0.21
0.95
0.13
0.99 0.97
1.09 0.65
1.46
0.07

1.09 0.16
1.23 0.27
3.20 0.00

1.08
1.40
2.49

0.26
0.04
0.00

1.12
1.27
3.55

0.01
0.13
0.00

1.10
0.88
1.67

0.08
0.52
0.05

2.23 0.00

1.48

0.03

1.72

0.01

1.40

0.11

2.36 0.01

3.08

0.00

3.76

0.00

5.29

0.00

2.21 0.00

1.29

0.24

1.51

0.05

1.66

0.02

1.17 0.00

1.09

0.02

1.07

0.08

1.09

0.04

1.03 0.03

0.98

0.14

1.03

0.01

0.97

0.14

0.98 0.01

1.01

0.19

0.99

0.16

1.02

0.14

0.65 0.22
0.18

0.79
0.14

0.57

0.69
0.21

0.24

1.09
0.25

0.78

Data source: Public Opinion Barometer of Open Society Foundation, October 2007, national representative sample
of 2000 adult, non-institutionalized persons, weighted data (For details on the sampling, see Sandu 2010). Own
computations. All the four models resulted from logistic regression. Cluster option corrects for lack of
independence of answers for the persons from the same locality. The syntax for running the model in STATA was:
xi:logistic
intafacere man age superior liceu profesional postlicscurt stielimbistr internet2 bunuri sanatate
i.sitmig relatii remigscurt02 remiglung02 religminorit [pw=pondere], cluster(sirsup)
*Dummy variables

20

Table A 3.Migration experience in the household and personal entrepreneurial orientation (%)
Entrepreneurial orientation
Total
Migration experience in
nonentre entrepreneur entrepreneur entrepreneur
the household
preneur
by desire
by intention by behavior row % col%
no family experience of
77
11
5
7
100
63
emigration
48
27
11
14
100
3
personal nonwork
experience abroad
personal intention to
51
17
19
13
100
5
work abroad
family member work
experience

61

13

10

17

100

22

personal work
eperience abroad

48

11

23

18

100

Total

69

12

10

100

100

Data source: Survey data Living abroad on a temporary basis, Open Society Foundation, 2006, national
representative sample. Figures for migration experience typology differ slightly from those provided in the
initial research report (Sandu 2006). The hypothesis and the algorithms for ordering are different in the two
computations. In the current classification is supposed that the second degree experience, after the personal
one of having worked abroad, is that of living in a household where at least one person, different of the
respondent, worked or is working abroad. The third rank is given by the case where nobody in the
household has an experience of working abroad but the respondent intends to emigrate.
Entrepreneurs by behaviour are persons that are employers or self-employed. If they are not in that
category but plans to open a business are entrepreneurs by intention. Entrepreneurs by desire are not in the
two above mentioned categories but would choose to open a business if winning at lottery a large amount
of money.
Figures in rectangles indicate significant positive associations between column and row values, for p=0.05,
in adjusted standardized residuals analysis.

21

Notes
1

In an age of increasing flexibility of work emigration, the polarity between permanent and temporary
emigration that is classical in demography does not work so well. In real life, the initial design at emigration or
later on, at return, changes function of immigration context or of the distance between the emigration target
and the stage of its accomplishment. When migrants are abroad and you ask them about the time of return, a
standard answer is a general conditional one - lets see. This is why I consider that indefinite time
emigration is an appropriate category when neither permanent nor temporary are clearly adopted by the
emigrant. The accent here is not on incomplete or liquid migration as in Okolskis approach (2001) but on
the fact that the migrant has an unstable plan on the duration of stay, conditioned by multiple life
circumstances.

The multinomial logistic regression models that are used by the authors operate with variables at individual,
household, community and national level and are well specified. Normally, such models should be run in
multilevel models with specific softs (HLM or similar) able to correct for the fact that households in the same
community are not entirely independent. If not used, significance levels coefficients for aggregated variables
could be affected by estimation errors.

See, as an example of mechanics physical approach Wolpert 1967.

The issue no 3-4 for 2000 of Sociologie Romaneasca journal, including the study, was effectively published
with a large delay, in 2002. That explains the inconsistency between data collection in 2001 by community
census, and the formal date of publication for the journal.
5

I computed, on survey data, an index of personal network capital by counting the useful relations persons
have in administration, health sector, law, banks or to find a job. The sample of 11955 rural adult persons was
constituted by cumulating independent subsamples for rural communities from 14 waves of Public Opinion
Barometer of Soros Foundation Romania, 1998-2004. The values of that index tends to be higher for young
women of higher level of education, better economic conditions in the household, higher media consumption,
of Hungarian ethnicity and from a minority religious group (Roman-Catholic, Protestant , Neoprotestant etc).
Being Roma reduces the probability having high network capital. The finding resulted from the interpretation
of an ordinal logistic regression model.
6

The coefficient of variation for the demographic size of the commune is much lower (54%) compared to the
similar indicator for the villages (129%).

7
8

Paula Tufis helped me with very good suggestions on improving the goodness of fit for that model.
2

R for the latent variable temporary emigration is of 0.44 for Moldova region compared to 0.28 for
Transilvania (Table A 1).

Technical support for the evaluations in this paragraph results from the comparison of the odds ratios in
Table A2.

22

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