Accepted: 26 September 2017

DOI: 10.1002/psp.2114

SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER

The nexus of motivation–experience in the migration process

of young Romanians
Dumitru Sandu | Georgiana Toth | Elena Tudor

Centre for Migration Studies, University of

Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
Correspondence
Dumitru Sandu, Centre for Migration Studies,
University of Bucharest, Str. Panduri, No. 90,
Sector 5, Bucharest, Romania.
Email: dumitru.sandu@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper presents and explains the migration motivations and behaviour of young (age 16–
35 years) Romanians. The originality of the paper lies in conceptualising the experiences and
motivations of migration as a variable nexus during the migration process; that is, as a complex
web of relations between motivations and types of migration experiences. A descriptive analysis
introduces types of motivations for the first migration and for returning home. Dissatisfaction and
opportunities in different spheres of life (job, education, family and friendship networks, and life-
styles) are the key variables explaining the dynamics within the nexus. This is contextualised by
factors related to the individual, community, region, and country, in a multilevel perspective.
The relationship between previous structures and the current migration motivations of Romanian
youth are also addressed via a comparative European‐level analysis. The first hypothesis, about
the lifestyle motivations of Romanian students, is not supported by the data. The second
hypothesis, about similarities between Romanian youth and youth from Latvia and Slovakia, is
consistent with the findings. The third hypothesis, on the similarity between Romanian youth
and the youth from countries of simultaneous emigration and immigration (Spain, Italy, and
Ireland) is partially supported only in the case of Italy. The paper draws on both quantitative
survey data and semistructured interviews.

KEY W ORDS

migration experience, migration intentions, migration motivation, return migration, young

Romanians

1 | I N T RO D U CT I O N migration–development nexus (Sørensen, 2012). Contrary to the

There are several research perspectives on the motivations for inter-
national migration. This paper analyses young Romanians' reasons to
migrate within the four‐dimensional space of content, intensity,
contextualisation, and sources of expressing motivation. The originality
of the study derives mainly from the way motivation
contextualised: (a) by time, (b) by its dynamic relation with migration
experiences, and (c) by constructing motivation types that bring the
approach closer to agent‐based models of migration decisions
(Klabunde & Willekens, 2016).
The agency approach is grounded in the motivations being self‐
declared by the migrants, instead of being attributed by the
researcher. They are “in order to,” rather than “because” reasons
(Schutz & Embree, 2011). The relations between motivation and
experiences are understood as a nexus, similar to the notion of the
usual approach of only considering motivation at a certain point in
the migration process, for example, for temporary emigration (Stark
& Taylor, 1991) or return (Dustmann & Weiss, 2007), this paper con-
siders key phases of the migration process: the first temporary
migration abroad, return migration, circular migration, and intentions
is to migrate again in the future. The typological analysis is explored by
testing the relevance of a typology of first migration motivations and
by reviewing the role of different types of migration experience in
structuring the migration motivations of returned migrants compared
to potential migrants.
The first hypothesis (H1) stipulates that lifestyle and more
personal motivations (related to employment, education, and family)
are specific for students compared to young employed people and
for those who are less integrated in family life. The second hypothesis
(H2) tests the idea that the migration motivations of Romanian youth

Popul Space Place. 2018;24:e2114. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/psp Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1 of 16
https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2114
2 of 16
are similar to those of the youth from other Central and Eastern
European countries, where job and family reasons for migration abroad
are prominent. This is tested by comparison with data from the two
other EU10 countries in the Youth Mobility (YMOBILITY) project—
Slovakia and Latvia. The third hypothesis (H3) explores the idea that
migration motivation patterns for young Romanians (leaving from or
returning to their country) are closer to the patterns of immigration–
emigration countries (Italy, Spain, and Ireland) than to the pattern of
immigration countries (United Kingdom (UK), Germany, and Sweden).
The first section of the paper aims to disentangle the nexus
between the motivation for and experiences of temporary migration.
Migration experiences are presented as stages within the migration
process (anticipatory socialisation during first emigration, first immigra-
tion, one‐time return, circular migration, and current potential future
migration), with particular practices being associated with each stage.
These “blocks” of migration experiences at different stages interact
with dissatisfactions and perceived opportunities related to the main
spheres of life: occupation, personal networks, human capital, and res-
idential places. The second section details the data and methods for
analysis: both survey and interview data are utilised. The third part of
the study is devoted to the description and understanding of the first
migration as reconstituted by the returned migrants. The typologies
of the first migration motivations for the Romanian youth are
compared with those for youth from other European countries
included in the nine‐country YMOBILITY study. The fourth section
applies the same type of approach to the analysis of return motiva-
tions. The final section focuses on the nexus connecting the
structure of the motivations for potential migration and the individuals'
experiences of migration or nonmobility (return, circulation, involun-
tary stayers, and voluntary stayers).
FIGURE 1 Mapping the motivation‐experience nexus of the temporary migration process
SANDU ET AL.
2 | D I S E N T A N G LI NG A N I N T E R N A L N E X U S
I N T H E D Y N A M I C S OF T H E M I G R A T I ON
PROCESS
The starting point for the paper was an exploration of the YMOBILITY
survey and interview data that engendered the idea that there is a
nexus relationship between migration motivations and intentions,
and migration experiences. The most important relationship is that
migration experience influences migration intentions and motivations.
In other words, the notion of the nexus implies that the migration pro-
cess is understood as a frame of reference and not only as a specific
stage of migration. The web of relationships between motivation and
experience within the migration process is mapped in Figure 1.
As abundant literature has shown, the migration decision to
remain in the same or to change place of residence is mainly related
to the key spheres of life—job and income, family and housing, friends,
education, lifestyle, and health and natural amenities (see e.g., Benson
& O'Reilly, 2009; Gosnell & Abrams, 2011; Ullmann, Goldman, &
Massey, 2011). Individuals migrate because they would like to change
their situation with respect to one or more of their spheres.
The immediate drivers of migration relate to (a) dissatisfactions
about specific spheres of life and/or (b) hopes of realising substantial
improvements in certain domains or spheres of life in other places.
Hence, this analysis is based on what we term the dissatisfaction and
relative opportunities model of migration motivations. Dissatisfactions
can be relative (Pettigrew, 2015) or understood via a noncomparative
approach (Amit & Riss, 2014). It was decided to build the model in
terms of dissatisfaction rather than relative deprivation because of
measurement challenges. Relative deprivation implies the positioning
of the subjects in relation to multiple reference groups, with different
SANDU ET AL.
degrees of identification. The exact measurement of these
identifications is very resource‐intensive and is rarely undertaken.
The distinction between noncomparative and comparative
dissatisfaction is also difficult to operationalise. Additionally, research
in Thailand, based on a value‐expectancy model, found that the
probabilities of having migration intentions were significantly
increased by higher expectations about income in the destination
versus the origin community but not by expectations related to
affiliation, stimulation, and comfort at the destination compared to
the origin (De Jong, 2000). Work satisfaction, a noncomparative
measure of subjective well‐being, was recorded as a negative
significant predictor of migration intentions. The findings suggest that
relative deprivation in noneconomic areas is less powerful in predicting
migration intentions. The limited relevance of relative income
deprivation is also consistent with the fact that most research on
relative deprivation focuses on income (Stark & Taylor, 1991).
The dissatisfaction and opportunity perceptions that are relevant
for explaining migration decisions are associated with the spheres of
personal life (Figure 1). Although varyingly defined, and somewhat
fuzzy conceptually, these generally cover four spheres of personal life
focused on occupation and income, personal communities (family and
friends), human capital, and residential places. The spheres of life are
identified with blocks of activities that are relevant for the purpose
of the analysis. Engbersen (2003), for example, identifies eight
spheres of integration of minorities: In the Dutch context, these are
related to work, housing, education, culture, politics, and religion.
Some of these spheres overlap with those adopted for this analysis.
However, the perspective in this paper is different because migration
is being analysed from the point of view of the place of origin or
return. It is here that occupation, personal communities, human
capital, and residential places really matter. In the logic of grounded
theory (Clarke, 2005), the spheres of life are understood as “social
worlds” or “universes of discourse” for the case of “personal
communities” (Pahl & Spencer, 2004) formed around potential or
current migrants.
All the main status variables (such as age, gender, education, occu-
pation, ethnicity, social class, and migration experience) potentially
influence migration motivation through the medium of dissatisfaction
and perceived opportunities. This is the case, for example, with higher
levels of education that tend to increase the level of expectations and,
at the same time, the probability of dissatisfaction as driver of migra-
tion The frustrations/dissatisfactions and opportunities that inform
migration decision‐making are always relative to other places or possi-
ble destinations (De Jong & Fawcett, 1981; Sandu & De Jong, 1996) or
to other people from the same community (Massey, Arango, Hugo,
Kouaouci, & Pellegrino, 1999; Stark & Taylor, 1991).
Migration experiences are understood and analysed in this study
in relation to stages in the migration process or as specific practices
associated with these stages. There are different approaches to under-
standing these stages of migration. They can be identified as being a
function of life‐course events, namely as, predecisional, preactional,
actional, and postactional (Kley, 2011). The approach of this paper,
however, is different, and the migration process is understood to
constitute a frame of reference. The stages in this perspective are
different, distinguishing among anticipatory socialisation in migration,
3 of 16
first migration, one‐time return, circular migration, and current or
future potential migration. First migration, one‐time return and circular
migration are specifications of the actional stage in Kley's (2011)
classification. The current intention to migrate is equivalent to the
postactional phase. Our approach is based on the notion that life‐
cycles do not sufficiently mark the variations in the migration process.
Instead, there is an inner dynamic in the migration process that is
independent of life cycles, moving from anticipatory socialisation to
first migration, one‐time return, circular migration, and current
potential migration. The internal driver of this process stems from
the enrichment of the migrants' network capital across these phases,
the crystallisation of her/his migration culture.
This paper seeks to go beyond the relatively abstract notion of
migration experience by using the concept of migration types as a
combination of behaviours with intentions to migrate. Six types of
persons are identified by this approach—stayers, ready‐to‐move
stayers, one‐time returnees, returnees on the move, circular migrants,
and circular migrants on the move (Sandu & Tufis, 2016).
The nexus of experience–motivation in the migration process
provides a means to better understand how cumulative causation
functions in the perpetuation of the migration process. This reveals a
set of virtuous cycles that bring continuity to the migration process,
in relation to the expansion of social networks, changes in the
distribution of land, income and education in the origin community,
capital‐intensive methods for farm production, migration culture in
the sense of the prevalence of migration, and social labelling of jobs
in destination communities (Massey et al., 1999). The nexus model
highlights how the cumulative experience of the stages and practices
of migration perpetuates the migration process via the interaction
among networks, migration cultures, and human capital.
3 | DATA AND METHODS
The analysis uses the YMOBILITY survey of 29,679 young persons (age
16–35 years), undertaken in November–December 2015, in nine
European Union countries: Germany, Sweden, UK, Ireland, Italy, Spain,
Latvia, Romania, and Slovakia. The data were weighted by the Univer-
sity of Surrey YMOBILITY team to be representative by age, gender,
education, and rural–urban residence. Unless otherwise specified,
weighting was used in the data processing. The unweighted procedure
is applied only for regression models to avoid the use of predictors that
were also included in the weighting.
The description of migration motivations at different stages
involved two types of data reduction: factor analysis, producing
dimensions of grouping motivations, and cluster analysis generating
classes or types of motivations. A set of 13 motives for the first
temporary emigration, for example, is reduced to four dimensions or
latent variables related to job, personal community, education, and life-
styles. The motivation profiles for the countries are compared in terms
of the averages of the four factor scores and a cluster analysis that has
17 motivation variables as inputs and six classes of migration
motivations as outputs. The two methods validate each other, placing
Romania in the group of Central and Eastern European countries.
The validity of the typology of first migration motivation is
4 of 16 SANDU ET AL.

demonstrated by the predictability of including respondents in this TABLE 1 The estimated importance of four types of first migration
typology as a function of sociodemographic and network variables. motivations by survey country
Migration motivation is considered in terms of not only its inten- Country Job Family and friends Education Lifestyle
sity and typology aspects but also its structural aspects. The intentions Slovakia 46 8 −21 −2
to migrate of the young Romanians have a more compact structure Latvia 46 5 −32 −12
than the more heterogeneous motivations of European young people. Romania 29 15 −33 7
Two types of regression models are used for prediction: multino- Italy 27 10 30 11
mial regression to predict the values of nominal variables and an UK −2 10 2 −4
ordinary least squares to test the impact of migration experiences on Spain −7 −10 10 −18
medium‐term intention to migrate. The sensitivity of the results Sweden −38 0 8 7
(Treiman, 2014) for the last application was tested by running the same Germany −35 −22 4 25
model with an ordered logistic regression. Robust standard errors were Ireland −9 −3 −10 −7
generated by controlling for the effects of NUTS3 regions.
Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. Figures in the table are weighted
The survey data we are using for this article refer to motivations to
averages of the factor scores multiplied by 100. The higher the value of
change the usual place of residence for youth from Romania and eight the index, the higher the importance of the category of migration reason
other EU countries. In spite of the majority of movements being under- in the reference country. Bold figures mark defining loadings for the fac-
tors. Example: The average intensity of job as motivation for first migration
taken within the EU, it is not always possible to specify whether the
was of 46 on the index measuring this type of motivation.
referenced territorial movement was within or outside the EU. For this
reason, we use the term migration instead of mobility.
The qualitative part of the analysis (based on interviews in a cen-
tral and in a peripheral region of Romania) illustrates the complexity
of migration motivations and the way first migration, living abroad,
returning, and circulating are interrelated. Motivations for return are
better specified by reference to difficulties at the destination. The
qualitative analysis complements “the algebra of variables” (Blumer,
1956) from the quantitative part of the article.

4 | THE FIRST MIGRATION

4.1 | The motivation of the first migration

The high diversity of migration motivations was reduced through fac-
tor analysis (Annex 1) for the nine countries to four dimensions: jobs,
personal communities, education, and lifestyles. These are of course
reconstituted or reconstructed reasons after returning home: In effect,
migration experience abroad played a role in producing, after
returning, a hierarchy of reasons to migrate. It is impossible know
whether and how these differ from the reasons at point of departure.
Job motivation is the most important variable for the migration of
Romanian youth (Table 1). The situation is similar for the other two
countries from Eastern (Latvia) or Central‐Eastern (Slovakia) Europe.
However, there is greater diversity in the motivations of Romanian
youth, with higher values for motivations related to “family and
friends” and to lifestyles. Romanians also have the highest score for
friends and relatives abroad in relation to the motivation for their first
migration. In fact, this cluster of reasons includes not only opportuni-
ties related to personal community (friends and relatives) abroad but
also a concern for healthcare and housing opportunities (see Annex 1).
It is not possible to use the survey data to explain the significance of
healthcare reasons in Romanians' first migration.
The dendrogram from Figure 2 indicates more precisely that the
first migration profile for young Romanians is close to the profiles of
young people from Slovakia and Latvia. In all three countries, youth
migration was mainly motivated by better job opportunities abroad,
FIGURE 2 Similarity of the nine countries by reasons for first
migration of the youth
by salaries, by career paths, by obtaining new skills, and by the push
factor of precarious jobs at home. Migration from the EU15 countries
has different profiles. Here, the similarity pairs are formed by
Germany–Sweden with strong lifestyle motivations, Spain–Italy with
high education migration, and the UK–Ireland with low or less distinct
profiles of motivation for migration.
The intensity of the four types of migration motivation is highly
differentiated in Romania by residence type and education status
(Table 2): Job motivation is specific for young people from large cities,
and lifestyle motivation is specific for nontertiary‐educated individuals
from large cities.
Migration motivations combine in a more complex way than is
suggested by the four dimensions discussed above. Further analysis
indicates that the main types of migration motivations are based on
combinations of the four dimensions related to jobs, personal com-
munities, education, and lifestyles. This analysis is based on the
dataset for all nine countries in order to allow for cross‐country
SANDU ET AL. 5 of 16

TABLE 2 The structure of motivations for first migration of Romanian youth by residence and education
Intensity of migration motivation on ....
Job Family and friends Education Lifestyle

Residential area before first migration Village/ rural area −15 23 −46 −8
Small / medium town 44 4 −41 1
Large city (metropolitan area) 59 25 −13 30
Current education status Student −19 3 −2 −25
Non‐tertiary 36 24 −51 13
Tertiary 35 −10 11 3

Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. Figures in the table are weighted averages of the factor scores multiplied by 100. The higher the value of the index,
the higher the importance of the category of migration reason in the reference country. Bold figures mark defining loadings for the factors. Example: the
average intensity of lifestyle as a motivation for first migration was 30 on the index measuring this type of motivation.

comparisons. Before locating Romanian youth within this broader
European framework, we first describe the six motivation types that
emerged from the cluster analysis for the full set of countries (see
Annex 2 for technical details). Each of the four dimensions of the
classification is accompanied by a specific social type of migration
motivation having a higher profile in relation to friends and family
networks abroad, jobs, education, and lifestyles. Jobs, education,
and lifestyles are relatively self‐contained types of motivations, each
one having relatively weak associations with the other motives. The
networks type is a more composite dimension, with a first‐order cat-
egory of motives related to having friends and relatives abroad, and a
second‐order category of motives associated to lifestyles. This can be
understood in terms of the typical migrant in this category having left
her/his country to live abroad, first of all, to join friends or family
members who are already there and second, to secure a new life-
style. This exemplifies how indirect migration experience—obtained
via friends and relatives abroad (transnational personal community)
—can inform the first migration. It reveals that migration experiences
do not only influence the intention to migrate after the first migra-
tion. This reinforces the argument about understanding migration
experience and motivation as constituting a nexus that is present
even in the early phases of the migration process.
The most composite type of motivation is structured around the
combination of networks, education, and job reasons. In contrast, the
residual type is not strongly associated with any of the four standard
motivations. This is the largest category at the pan‐European level,
accounting for some 30% of the young adults (Table 3). This type of
youth migration motivation is particularly evident in the UK, Ireland,
Germany, Sweden, and Spain.
In terms of first migration motivations, Romania is most similar to
Slovakia. Better jobs and personal networks abroad are the main
reasons for their temporary emigration. Romania is, however, differen-
tiated by the second‐order motivation related to lifestyle reasons.
Young adult Romanians in the category of lifestyle migrants represent
a quarter of all first migrants from Romania. Only Germany has a
similar large share of lifestyle migrants (23%). The finding is rather
surprising given the assumption that lifestyle migration tends to be
strongly associated with higher economic development levels.
Relatively poorer countries of migration origin—such as, in a European
context, Romania—are considered to be characterised more by survival
than by lifestyle migration (Sandu, 2000). Further explorations are
required in order to understand this finding, but one issue could be
that the notion of “lifestyle” is understood differently by different
nationalities, cultures, and classes of migrants.
Further insight into the motivation typology of young Romanians'
first migration is provided by considering age–education categories
(Table 4). There are five age–education categories and each is
characterised by a type of migration motivation. Job motivation is
specific for those aged 16–25, who have tertiary or nontertiary
education. Network motivation is specific for those aged 26–35 who
have lower education. Education mobility is characteristic for the
youngest people with tertiary education. “Residual” motivations, which

TABLE 3 Typology of reasons for the first temporary emigration, by return countries
Motive types for the first temporary emigration

Country Cumulative reasons Network Job Education Style of life Residual reasons Total

Germany 8 8 7 22 23 32 100
Ireland 9 11 12 11 15 43 100
Italy 24 6 14 21 16 19 100
Latvia 8 10 38 7 18 19 100
Romania 10 15 22 6 25 22 100
Slovakia 10 16 32 8 17 17 100
Spain 10 7 18 20 10 36 100
Sweden 11 10 7 21 14 37 100
UK 17 8 15 11 14 36 100
Total 12 9 16 15 16 31 100

Data source: YMOBILITY survey, 2015. Reading example: 22% out of returned to Romania young migrants declared economic reasons for their first migra-
tion abroad. Bold figures indicate cells of significant statistical association between column and row values, for p = .05 (according to an adjusted standardised
residuals analysis, not showed here).
6 of 16 SANDU ET AL.

TABLE 4 Typology of first migration motivations by education and age, for Romanian youth
Education and age group Total
Migration motivation related to
Students Non‐tertiary education Tertiary education Age group
16–25 26–35 16–25 26–35 16–25 26–35 16–35
Cumulative factors 14 4 11 8 14 8 11 10
Networks (personal 4 8 24 6 17 6 22 15
communities abroad)
Job 11 28 18 34 22 26 18 22
Education 7 6 0 21 15 11 2 6
Lifestyle 14 16 36 11 18 13 35 25
Residual factors 50 37 11 20 14 36 11 22
Total (%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
N 28 47 114 33 13 108 130 238

Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. Bold figures are for high association between column and row values by adjusted standardised residuals, for p = .05.

are not related to education, job and, personal networks, are more
frequent for students, as expressed in the first research hypothesis.
Lifestyle motivation is strongly associated with the nontertiary
educated in the age category of 26–35, which are not consistent with
expectations that students would have a higher propensity for this
type of motivation. Cumulative motivation (involving networks, job,
education, lifestyles etc.) is recorded mainly for students and tertiary‐
educated individuals aged over 25.
All the main reasons for the first migration that were recorded by
the survey were also identified in the qualitative interviews that are
summarised below.
4.2 | Reasons to migrate: A qualitative perspective
The qualitative data analysis suggests that there is a configuration of
reasons that shape the migratory experiences of returnees (Sandu &
Tufis, 2016). Respondents who had unskilled jobs at the destination
(mostly in agriculture, construction, and housekeeping) first migrated
with the purpose of increasing their household incomes. Whether they
left singly or together with partners, they left when an opportunity
arose to find work in another country, most often through relatives
or acquaintances in Romania or abroad (Serban, 2011). In addition to
social networks, different types of recruitment agencies also repre-
sented an important means for the unskilled to find a job abroad
(Diminescu, 2009).
We encountered situations where respondents who had unskilled
jobs wanted to raise money through migration in order to pay for their
university studies in Romania after their return, or who went abroad
with the purpose of opening a business after their return, even if these
plans were not necessarily fulfilled (see also Croitoru, 2015). Another
common investment purpose for the money earned abroad was to
buy or improve a house. This group of economic motivations also
includes push factors, such as low wages and lack of jobs, in Romania.
Skilled respondents sought a job abroad on their own by using the
internet, personal networks, or recruiting agencies, with the aim of
earning money to buy an apartment, a house, or a car and to pay for
a wedding or simply to increase their incomes. This group includes
individuals who have decided to go abroad for professional reasons,
including some who were sent abroad by their employers to work on
a project that could last from a few months to one or more years. In
the case of sojourns abroad of more than 3 months, the company
arranged that the migrants could live abroad with periodic breaks so
as to avoid taxes. Additionally, some skilled respondents decided to
leave at a time when finding a job in their area of specialisation was
impossible in Romania. They migrated either to do so abroad, or to
obtain a different but better‐paid job, as is the case of a teacher, unable
to find a job in Romania, who had migrated to and worked in a hotel in
Italy after 2002 but had secured a teaching job after returning.:
I went abroad one year after graduating. I worked in the
company Altex Bacău that year and, at the end of
December 2002, I left. I went to Italy for three years
and a half. Which is [to say] there were no teaching jobs
in Bacău and around Bacău at the time, at the time of
the graduation (skilled worker, male, 38, Italy).
Some respondents who studied abroad had first moved as part of
the Erasmus programme (for 6 months or more), as part of research
grants or exchange of experience programmes, or by direct application
to the universities as international students. Some of the participants
already started searching for international mobility opportunities
during high school, perceiving that studies abroad were qualitatively
better than in Romania:
So my criterion was the best physics faculty in the world.
And as the University of Cambridge was in the second
place, I decided I wanted to go there. I searched for
information about the process, I programmed all my
tests, I took the SSTs as well, I prepared my applications
at the same time, I applied. I had to comply with some
conditions for the Baccalaureate, I did and I got in
(student, female, 25, UK).
Sometimes, the educational motivation was mixed with financial
considerations, where the scholarships allowed individuals to earn
more money than was possible by staying in Romania.
There were other Magyar colleagues [i.e. Hungarian‐
speaking] who opted for a university in Hungary, really
close to the border, like Szeget or Debretzen, in order to
minimise the distance and to maximise the profit
because the scholarship at that time was more than
SANDU ET AL.
double the scholarship in the country [Romania]. And so
they didn't aim at benefiting most from the academic
experience, but to maximise the amount of money they
could save. But I also had colleagues who went abroad
the same way as I did, taking the best possible option
they had and spending six months at universities in
Europe (student, male, 28, Germany).
Other than the educational motivation, travelling and discovering
other cultures and lifestyles also influenced the decision to migrate
and the choice of destination. Language and the climate were also
important considerations.
Interviewer: How did you choose Ireland? Response:
Well… I am… being a student at the English‐German
department, I am a big fan of the English language, so I
always liked it a lot and I always wanted to go to a
country where they speak English at the native level,
you know? And this was really my incentive… (student,
male, 23, Ireland).
Although these considerations are less relevant in the case of
unskilled workers, they played a role in the migration of skilled
workers.
Another important group of motivations is linked to personal and
family issues. Even if family seems less important in the case of stu-
dents—a category that includes the youngest respondents who were
usually unmarried and did not have children at the time of their migra-
tion—it still plays a role in their migration. It is decisive in the case of
students who were taken abroad by their families when children—the
economic factor also plays a role here but indirectly via the migration
decision of the parents who had to deal with low wages and precarious
work conditions in Romania.
For both skilled and unskilled workers, family was essential in the
decision to migrate, both in the case of those who went abroad with
partners or other members of their families, as well as for those who
decided to leave the country because their relatives were already
abroad. Personal reasons, such as the need to change their context
and country because of personal events (the death of a close person,
a family, or relationship break‐up) or the desire for personal growth,
sometimes influenced individuals to leave Romania for a period.
4.3 | Predicting the motivation of the first migration
The propensity to display a particular migration motivation largely
stems from combinations of opportunities and constraints associated
with age (specifically, being more or less than 25 years old), gender,
civil status, occupation, employment, education, network capital
abroad, and urban/rural residence before the first emigration (see
Annex 3).
These variables predict the variations in the first migration
motivations of young Romanians better than for Latvia and Slovakia
or for the six countries of the EU15 included in the YMOBILITY
survey. However, migration as the outcome of cumulative motiva-
tions is less well explained for young Romanians and, indeed, for
young Latvians and Slovakians. Only urban residence seems to
7 of 16
increase the probability of migrating through cumulative motivation
among young Romanians.
The typical profile for a young Romanian migrating abroad is this:
An individual driven mainly by employment reasons, who is more than
25 years of age, single and without children, has a manual occupation,
and resided in an urban area prior to migration. The analysis for
(returned) migrants in Slovakia and Latvia, considered together,
provides a broadly similar picture.
The network type of motivation is particularly important for
young Romanian women who had gone abroad to join family mem-
bers or friends who were already migrants. Those displaying this
network motivation are also single, without children, and in the
age group of 26–35. The network motivation is more strongly
rooted in the sociodemographic life in Romania than it is in Latvia
and Slovakia: There are a larger number of significant regression
coefficients in the first, compared to the latter cases. Having friends
and relatives abroad favours the network motivation of emigration
to a higher degree for young Romanians than for young people
from the EU15 countries or from Latvia and Slovakia (Annex 3). This
is consistent with previous empirical research indicating a strong
familial element in Romanian migration abroad (Sandu et al., 2006;
Sandu et al., 2009).
Young Romanians for whom lifestyle is a prominent reason for
their first migration tend to be women over 25, single and without
children, and living in urban areas before migration. Employment,
occupation, education, and network capital abroad do not play a
significant role in structuring this social profile. The findings only par-
tially support the expectations expressed in the first hypothesis (H1).
However, as expected, the propensity to migrate for lifestyle reasons
is greater for individuals who are less integrated into family life.
5 | R E T U R N M I G RA T I O N
5.1 | Reasons to return: Quantitative evidence
Reasons to return have a different structure than reasons to migrate,
with return being thought of less in terms of spheres of life. The 17
questions that were designed to capture reasons for returning were
formulated in the YMOBILITY survey in terms, which were as similar
as possible to those used to capture the first migration reasons.
However, the grouping that resulted from the data analysis is different.
The return reasoning of the migrants is more likely to centre on solving
problems, adapting to constraints, and achieving the initial plans
behind their decision to emigrate. Emigration was basically driven by
relative frustrations and opportunities related to jobs, education, and
way or style of life. Return is informed more by maintaining or forming
a family group, reacting to constraints (especially health or work
contracts), doing business at home or building a house, or generally
accomplishing the initial migration aims.
Young people from Romania, Latvia, and Slovakia are, again,
similar in their return motivations, focusing on meeting family needs
or projects (Table 5). A secondary but significant reason for returning
for Romanians is doing business and building or developing a house.
Returning after achieving the aims of the original emigration is specific
8 of 16 SANDU ET AL.

TABLE 5 Categories of reasons to return by countries powerful in discriminating between countries. Romania and Latvia
Reasons to return (mean values of the indices) are clearly the two countries where return is motivated mainly by
Family and Health and company Aims Business family reasons. Slovakia lies between the dominant profile for
Country homesick obligations achieved and house Romania–Latvia and Italy–Germany–Sweden. Young people in the
Latvia 54 −1 −27 −23 latter group of Western EU countries are mainly motivated to return
Romania 45 −19 0 18 home by the idea of having accomplished their migration plans.
Slovakia 25 0 17 6 Respondents from Spain, Ireland, and the UK have more diversified
Italy 11 15 37 23 reasons to return.
Germany −10 −8 33 −12 The similarities among the return motivation profiles of the differ-
Sweden −13 1 3 −6 ent countries are summarised in Figure 3. Here, the motivation profile
Spain −8 −2 1 −2 is given by the motivation percentages for 17 items. The outcome is an
UK −15 2 −22 4 image with two clusters: one for the Central and Eastern European
Ireland −17 0 −33 −6 countries (Romania, Latvia, and Slovakia) versus another for the six
“Western” countries: Spain, Sweden, Germany, Italy, UK, and, with a
Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015.Each index of the return motiva-
tion is a factor score multiplied by 100. Factor analysis on the whole specific profile, Ireland.
YMOBILITY sample of returnees (5,533 persons, weighted data) on a set The “residual reasons” return motivation (Table 6) is dominant
of 17 reasons to return. The higher the mean of the index value, the higher
in all the surveyed countries. Given their diverse nature, these
the importance of the cluster of reasons to return. Example: the intensity of
the motivation to return related to developing a business or building a reasons are better captured by semistructured interviews than by
house at home is at the level of 18, on a scale between −213 to 350, as survey questions. However, returned migrants to Romania did
minimum and maximum, with a mean of zero. A close to zero index of aims identify difficulties in their life abroad as the basis of their
achieved for the Romanian youth signifies that the intensity of this index is
close to the mean. Its negative values for UK and Latvia indicate average
motivation to return and insights provided by the semistructured
values that are much under the whole sample mean. interviews are presented below.

to the Italian and German respondents and has a very low significance
for Romanians and Latvians.
The four dimensions of return motivations—family, health, aims
achieved, and “business and house”—combine to yield four motivation
types related to family, aims achieved, cumulative, and residual reasons
(Table 6).
Respondents from countries or groups of countries have one or
two specific types of return motivation. The new tool for analysing
return motivation profiles, presented into Table 6, is much more
TABLE 6 Distribution of the returned youth by country and type of
reason
5.2 | Reasons to return and circulate: A qualitative
approach
Although economic considerations are most important in configuring
the decision to migrate abroad, among returnees—the skilled and
unskilled workers, as well as some students—the family context is
highly influential. This seems to be the most important element in
the configuration of migration strategies even when the main reason
for going abroad and/or returning is of a different nature.
Previous research indicates that family reasons are the most com-
mon motivation to return for migrants in general (Barcevičius, Iglicka,
Repečkaitė, & Žvalionytė, 2012) and for Romanians in particular.

Typology of the return home reasons Among respondents in a 2010 study, 73% stated that they returned
Country Total
Cumulative Aims Residual
Family reasons achieved reasons

Latvia 32 5 10 53 100
Romania 29 7 22 41 100
Slovakia 21 9 29 42 100
Italy 10 18 32 41 100
Germany 8 7 39 47 100
Sweden 6 9 28 57 100
Spain 7 8 22 62 100
Ireland 7 5 11 77 100
United Kingdom 4 9 13 74 100
Total 11 9 22 58 100

Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. The typology is generated on the

whole YMOBILITY sample of returned youth by a cluster analysis (of k
means type), starting from the four indices in Table 5. Figures marked by
bold indicate significant positive associations between column and row cat-
egories for p = .05 (not shown results of adjusted standardised residuals).
Example: 32% out of the total youth returnees in Latvia are in the category
of migrants justifying their return by family reasons (children, family rela- FIGURE 3 Clusters of country profiles function of reasons for
tions or problems, homesickness, forming a new family etc.). returning home
SANDU ET AL.
for family reasons, such reasons including illness in the family,
children's needs, and homesickness (Stănculescu & Stoiciu, 2012: 126).
Family reasons were often mentioned as incentives for
returning by those who returned to be with their parents or to raise
their children in their country of origin. Where the husband/wife
and/or children were still in Romania, they returned after earlier
having sent money to improve the house and pay other expenses
(see Vlase, 2011). In some cases, the children preferred to return to
Romania (or were too young to act independently) and the entire
family came back but, in other cases, it was too difficult to bring chil-
dren with them or the birth of children made them decide to return.
Being with their children and partner in the case of those who were
alone abroad, raising children close to their relatives, and taking care
of parents are significant family motivations for return.
Family reasons are also decisive for students who return when
their educational programmes are completed, even if there are
opportunities to continue their stay abroad. For this second category
of students, completing their studies in Romania also played a major
role in their return, and the intention to go abroad again is influenced
by their current familial situation.
Although achieving their migration objectives was the main reason
for return in the case of students, many also considered it was important
to complete their studies in Romania. This is why many respondents in
this category chose to return to Romania even when they had the
possibility to prolong their stay abroad to work. In the case of skilled
and unskilled workers, achieving their purposes was linked to having
earned sufficient money to fulfil the initial objectives of the migration,
such as paying for a house, a car, a wedding, or saving enough for an
investment or a business. Skilled workers who were sent abroad by a
company generally returned at the end of their project period.
Financial difficulties abroad, arising from the inability to find a job
for skilled workers and students who had intended to stay longer,
influenced some respondents to return. The economic crisis was
important, especially for unskilled workers, but sometimes also for
the other two categories of respondents, by negatively impacting on
work conditions, wages, and the ability to pay rents, as well as the
general expectations that individuals had about their situation at the
destination. In some cases, the return was accelerated by things
“starting to go bad” because of the crisis and a perceived increase in
the number of jobless Romanians:
When the crisis arrived we experienced it intensely. I was
already staying home with the children, bringing money or
not, I was at home, but for him [her husband] it was more
difficult. He had to come home and say ‘Well no money
this month’ and because of this… (unskilled worker,
female, 39, Italy).
Health problems are also mentioned in the interviews and, as
expected, they were most decisive for the return of unskilled workers.
However, some returnees who had skilled jobs abroad also returned
because of their health (related to difficult work conditions and the
climate, as in the UK).
I had to do extra jobs. I was doing both nice things and
things that I didn't like. And I couldn't continue like this.
9 of 16
I did a lot of physical work, my body gave up, it couldn't
do it anymore. My back was hurting because of so much
work and I couldn't stand the cold weather there
anymore, I mean the rain, that weather… (skilled worker,
female, 33, UK).
In terms of their personal plans, relationships at a distance with a
partner in Romania represented for the youngest respondents, who
did not have a family at the time of their migration, another decisive
return factor.
Interviewer: How about the decision to return in your
case? Respondent: The first thing I was thinking about
was the importance for my parents. The second
essential thing was that my boyfriend was in Romania.
We already had a relationship at distance. … (student,
female, 23, Spain).
Even if we can often identify a main reason that determined
migrants to return to Romania, it is important to underline that a group
or “family” of factors shape the process of deciding and returning. The
interviewees enumerate financial issues (caused by the economic
crisis) and family reasons, as well as homesickness and lack of
integration at the destination.
For skilled and unskilled workers, economic factors are of major
importance in returning to Romania: lower pay abroad in a time of
crisis, lack of a stable job, and completion of contract abroad. From
the financial point of view, some respondents mentioned that it was
better to return to Romania after comparing not only incomes but also
the cost of living abroad.
To conclude, family and financial factors are seen to be the most
important in shaping the decision to return. Difficulties to integrate
or, even if integrated, not feeling at home, feeling like a stranger, were
another reason indicated by the respondents. Among the reasons for
return, respondents also mentioned difficulties in adapting to
employers' requirements abroad (for those with tertiary education),
difficulties in adapting to life conditions or climate conditions, or health
deterioration (often because of work conditions).
5.3 | Contextualising the reasons to return as
difficulties at the destination
Personal perceptions of the processes of adapting and inclusion in the
country of destination highlight the main difficulties that returned
migrants were confronted with when abroad. The decision to return
was strongly influenced by how they engaged with these difficulties.
For many young migrants who returned, especially in the case of the
first departure, living abroad was a period that means a transition to
independence: A separation from parents that marks doing things on
their own or changing or giving up old habits, which produces yet
another difficulty to overcome in the process of integration at the
destination.
When it comes to study experiences, students do not have
substantial difficulties other than in adapting to the requirements of
other learning systems, which are often more competitive and based
more on individual study (e.g., as in the UK) than in Romania. Migrants
10 of 16
who had skilled jobs at the destination mention difficulties in adapting
to the employers' standards (targets and high requirements), in satisfy-
ing these without individual learning efforts, and new forms of stricter
work organisation. In the case of unskilled workers, precarious work
conditions are emphasised: more working hours, fewer free days,
stress and health problems, the alternation of work periods, and a lack
of employment contracts.
Integration difficulties are more pronounced, with migrants feeling
like strangers abroad, being different or not accepted, homesick,
perceiving that Romanians are not well regarded, social distance from
the native residents, and lack of friends and/or family: Sometimes these
are insufficiently compensated by financial success. Sometimes, among
those with lower levels of education, we can observe the “downside of
social capital” (Portes & Landolt, 1996): Migration networks set‐up
abroad of family, relatives, and friends can constitute an impediment
to establishing new relations (except with their employers), especially
in the case of those who work in teams that mainly include Romanians.
Nationality‐based stereotyping that leads to discrimination was
also perceived by returnees. In the labour market, this is visible through
lower wages being paid to Romanians compared to natives, and viola-
tion of the rights of employment contracts. On the other hand, com-
petitive situations are more relevant for students, and the perception
that “you have to struggle ten times more than a local” (student,
female, 28, Germany). Discrimination is also present in daily interac-
tions: One respondent recounted how work colleagues refused to
accompany her for lunch when they found out she was Romanian
(student, female, 27, Germany). Another interviewee stressed that he
chooses to speak Hungarian when going abroad because Romanians
are not well regarded (student, male, 23, Spain). There is a general per-
ception that Romanians are labelled and stigmatised on the basis of
stereotypes such as “thief” or untrustworthy. “They make the judge-
ment before knowing you, before seeing you, before… how can I put
it? Before opening your mouth and talking and seeing how you look
like” (student, female, 24, Ireland).
5.4 | Reasons to circulate
For skilled and unskilled returnees with more experiences of
migration abroad, leaving for shorter periods of time is perceived as
being more advantageous. They can both improve their incomes
and stay close to their families. Circulatory migrants who regularly
go abroad for short periods are somehow caught “between here
and there” because of economic instability: In Romania they cannot
earn enough to fulfil their plans, but they cannot or do not want to
stay long‐term at the destination. Among our interviewees, there
were migrants with multiple returns who had explored multiple
destinations, as in the case of a skilled worker who experienced a
study period in Belgium and then worked once in Austria and twice
in Germany, and another who worked in the UK, Ibiza, and finally,
in Istanbul with the purpose of experiencing multiple countries and
raising money to develop a business: She opened a tourism business
in Romania after returning.
For one‐time returned migrants who would like to remigrate in the
future, some are motivated by feeling deceived by their experience of
SANDU ET AL.
return, in terms of, for example, financial difficulties, readaptation
problems, unsatisfactory public institutions and employees, and having
higher expectations than before migrating. Others (especially skilled
workers and students) did not return with the aim of permanently
remaining in Romania and would prefer further fixed periods of
work/study abroad. Being close to family also shapes the circulatory
strategies of our interviewees, both in the case of seasonal unskilled
workers in agriculture or tourism, and skilled workers sent abroad by
their companies for a few months.
6 | STRUCTURING MIGRATION
MOTIVATIONS BY MIGRATION
E X P E R I E NC E S
The motivation–experience nexus is further clarified if the structure of
the motivation for potential migration is included in the analysis. The
results of the analysis are rather unstable for the returned migrants
in Romania due to small subsamples of 266 and 232, respectively, for
unweighted and weighted computations. More stable results can be
obtained by analysing the motivation structure of potential migration
or stability in interaction with a refined typology of migration experi-
ence. A second reason for considering the motivations for potential
migration stems from how the motivation–experience nexus is struc-
tured: A special category of stayers are simultaneously nonmigrants
but highly socialised in migration culture, due to having failed previ-
ously to migrate despite having wanted to do so. They are typified
by the sentiment: “I thought seriously about emigration but never
emigrated”. Starting from this distinction, migration experience was
defined so as to differentiate voluntary stayers, involuntary stayers,
one‐time returnees, and circular or repeated migrants (Table 7).
In a comparative European context, young Romanians are similar
to young Italians and Spaniards with a high propensity to go abroad
and lower shares of returnees and voluntary stayers (results based on
adjusted standardised residuals are not shown here). Voluntary stayers
are specific for the youth from Latvia and Slovakia.
The motivation structure for the potential stability/migration of
the Romanian sample can be reduced to three blocks of reasons
(Figure 4b). The most structured reason includes aspects related to
jobs and human capital, and the second one, welfare and amenities.
The diversity of reasons is much higher for the total YMOBILITY
sample for the nine countries. In the latter, there are five types of
motivations (Figure 4a) associated with jobs, human capital, welfare,
amenities, and personal communities. An index of the intensity of
the motivation to stay or move abroad was constructed for each of
the five groups of variables (by factor scores). Four out of these five
indices were included as predictors of migration intention in the next
5 years.
Jobs and welfare are the specific motivations for the migration
intentions of the Romanian youth. Only for Italian and Spanish youth
do the intensity of job motivation positively inform migration
intentions. Surprisingly, the motivations of the youth from Latvia
and Slovakia are entirely different, with a focus on human capital.
Another specific feature of the causal profile of the intentions to
migrate of Romanian youth (in the European context) is the
 SANDU ET
AL.

TABLE 7 Motivations and migration experiences as explanations of intentions to migrate for the next 5 years: Romanian youth in a comparative European framework
y = intention to migrate in the next 5 years (5 points scale) for youth from
Romania Latvia and Slovakia Italy and Spain DE UK IE SE
Predictors Coef. p>t Coef. p>t Coef. p>t Coef. p>t

Index of the reasons related to

Human capital 0.048 .241 0.077 .006 0.138 .000 0.140 0.000
Job 0.117 .017 0.048 .143 0.080 .000 0.021 0.106

Welfare 0.115 .014 −0.053 .014 −0.046 .002 −0.027 0.099

Amenities −0.107 .004 0.054 .032 0.019 .222 0.000 0.996
Demographics
Age −0.044 .000 −0.042 .000 −0.038 .000 −0.047 0.000
Mana 0.102 .033 0.164 .000 0.116 .000 0.142 0.000
Tertiary educationa −0.098 .040 −0.022 .456 0.086 .001 0.121 0.000
Large town resid.a 0.054 .368 0.061 .110 0.100 .000 0.179 0.000
Migration experience (reference
voluntary stayer)
Circulara 0.733 .000 0.522 .000 0.911 .000 0.603 0.000
One time returna 0.457 .000 0.350 .000 0.511 .000 0.285 0.000
Involuntary stayera 0.815 .000 0.760 .000 0.860 .000 0.763 0.000
Satisfied with
Healtha −0.143 .019 −0.028 .400 −0.014 .613 0.033 0.164
Joba −0.057 .338 −0.197 .000 −0.132 .000 −0.071 0.007
Educationa −0.108 .081 0.175 .019 0.131 .000 0.126 0.000
Familya 0.023 .794 −0.108 .005 −0.090 .001 −0.110 0.000
a
Standard of living −0.108 .133 −0.103 .026 −0.054 .063 −0.054 0.040
_cons 3.954 .000 3.507 .000 3.440 .000 3.543 0.000
R2 0.127 0.133 0.182 0.1356
N 2078 4003 9976 13622

Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. OLS regression with robust standard errors, controlling for NUTS3 residence (cluster option in STATA, unweighted data).aDummy variables. The indices of migration/stability moti-
vation are independent factor scores grouping items by the configuration of clusters of variables from Figure 4a.
11 of 16
12 of 16
FIGURE 4 Structures of the motivation for youth intentions to migrate ([a] Whole YMOBILITY sample, [b] Romanian subsample). For the clustering
method see Sandu, 1988
importance of poor subjective health and having nontertiary
education (Table 7).
7 | C O N CL U S I O N S
The migration motivations of Romanian youth are mainly structured
around jobs and welfare. The profiles and predictors of migration
motivations are, in accordance with the second hypothesis, rather
similar for all the three predominantly “emigration countries” in the
YMOBILITY survey: Latvia, Romania, and Slovakia. Job motivation,
including reasons related to jobs, employment, and salaries, form a
durable cluster of key motivations for first migration, return, and the
potential migrations of young Romanians.
The third hypothesis, that there is similarity among the migration
motivations of youth from Romania compared to the youth from the
three emigration–immigration countries, is only partially supported
SANDU ET AL.
by the data. Only for Romania and Italy are there significant
similarities in the high importance of jobs and family/friends motiva-
tions for the first migration (Table 1). There is also a high degree of
similarity between the youth from the two countries in relation to
the considerable importance of business and home as motivations
for returning home (Table 5).
Lifestyle motivation was more frequent for young Romanians at
their first migration than for young migrants from Latvia and Slovakia
but also compared to Italy, Spain, Sweden, Ireland, and the UK. The
hypothesis that this type of motivation is specific for students is not
confirmed for Romania.
Qualitative interviews with students and those in employment
identified the same array of motives for migration of Romanian youth
but also provided new insights. Based on this empirical evidence, we
can say that expectations related to educational opportunities abroad
are more important for young people's motivations to emigrate than
dissatisfactions associated with different spheres of life.
SANDU ET AL.
Migration experience is associated with a decline in the idea that
friends or relatives abroad constitute an important criterion in the
migration decision‐making of young Romanians, Latvians, and
Slovakians (Annex 4). Nonmigrants from these countries are far more
likely than former migrants to consider that friends and relatives are
important for the decision to stay at home versus going abroad.
Low health satisfaction significantly increases the probability of
expressing an intention to migrate among young Romanians. The
impact is specific to Romania, and this relationship merits further
exploration using other data sources. The specificity seems to be
related to the fact that Romania has the poorest health levels,
reflected, for example, in the highest infant mortality rate in the EU.
It is also the only one of the nine countries where there is a negative
correlation between perceived health and the importance assigned to
healthcare in migration/stability decision‐making.
The structure of the motivations to migrate of young Romanians is
aggregated into fewer clusters than the dominant patterns in the other
YMOBILITY countries (Figure 4).
Migration experience is more important than motivation in
predicting the migration intentions of young Romanians (confirmed by
additional but unreported nested regression using the same predictors
as in Table 7). The probability of expressing an intention to emigrate
from Romania significantly increases if the individual is a returned
migrant or if she/he failed to migrate previously (Table 7). The most
important effect is related to the failed experience to migrate and, in
decreasing order, of being a circular, and one‐time returnee. Job and
welfare motivations are most important in stimulating the migration
intentions of young Romanians. Their impact in Romania is considerably
greater than for the other countries or macroregions in the EU.
Demographics, taken together (age, gender, education, and
residence), have the lowest importance in predicting the propensity to
migrate for young Romanians, compared to the other sets of
countries in the YMOBILITY research—Latvia and Slovakia (such as
Romania and “emigration countries”), Italy and Spain (“emigration/
immigration” countries), and UK, Germany, Sweden, and Ireland (“immi-
gration” countries). This can suggest a hypothesis that the poorer the
country, the lower the discrimination power of demographics to differ-
entiate migration selectivity. Another hypothesis that can be generated
by this type of analysis is that satisfaction with different spheres of life
(health, education, job, family, and standard of living) counts for less in
explaining migration propensity in predominantly emigration countries
in the Central and Eastern European than for predominantly immigra-
tion or emigration–immigration countries (based on an unreported
nested regression using the same predictors as in Table 7).
ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
We are grateful for the substantive comments provided by an
anonymous referee and by Allan Williams. Thanks also to Calvin
Jephcote for technical suggestions. The paper is one of the first
published outputs of the Horizon 2020 YMOBILITY project (grant
649491), running from 2015 to 2018.
ORCID
Dumitru Sandu http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8618-2252
13 of 16
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How to cite this article: Sandu D, Toth G, Tudor E. The nexus
of motivation–experience in the migration process of young
Romanians. Popul Space Place. 2018;24:e2114. https://doi.
org/10.1002/psp.2114

ANNEX

Annex 1: Dimensions of the first migration motivations (all the nine countries of the survey)

Self‐declared reason for the first migration (1 important Family and friends
or very important, 0 less important) Job (personal community) Education Lifestyle
Higher salaries than home .759 .262 .017 .042
Better career advancement opportunities .700 .156 .193 .152
To acquire new job skills .571 .065 .311 .319
Unemployment or precarious job .536 .309 .034 .041
General welfare .501 .360 .058 .309
Healthcare .281 .635 .157 .181
Join friends .115 .594 .201 .187
Join my family .157 .594 .153 .025
Housing opportunities .293 .565 .206 .120
Study as an exchange student .057 .227 .729 .154
Study for a degree .134 .279 .577 .089
Lifestyle/culture .149 .256 .169 .688
Improve my language skills .366 .053 .390 .416

Data source: YMOBILITY survey, weighted data. Figures in the table are loadings as results of a factor analysis (PCA, Varimax).

Annex 2: Specific profiles of the types of first migration motivations (all the nine countries of the survey)

Final cluster centres by types of migration motivations

Dimensions of motivation for the first
migration Cumulative Networks Job Education Lifestyle Residual

Job 0.58 −0.21 1.01 −0.43 0.53 −0.76

Family and friends 1.53 0.95 −0.36 −0.49 −0.39 −0.26
Education 0.98 −0.62 −0.22 1.23 −0.45 −0.45
Lifestyle 0.23 0.56 −0.63 0.39 0.93 −0.60
Youth in the category (%), unweighted data 12.8 9.4 17.0 16.3 16.6 28.0 100
Youth in the category (%), weighted data 12.3 9.2 16.2 15.1 16.1 31.1 100

Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. The four items were normalised by z score before clustering by k means cluster analysis. Cluster centres are aver-
ages of the clustering item for the empirical grouping (cluster). The meaning of a cluster is given by the items with the highest averages for that case (as
indicated by the shadow).
SANDU ET AL. 15 of 16

Annex 3: Predicting the types of first migration motivations

Romania Latvia and Slovakia Old European Union

Types of
motivation Predictors Coef. p>z Coef. p>z Coef. p>z
Cumulative Man a
−0.138 .805 0.125 .721 0.436 .000
Age 26–35a 0.890 .145 −0.297 .407 −0.155 .197
Friends & relatives abroada −0.121 .843 0.436 .198 1.063 .000
Single without childrena 0.359 .543 0.550 .197 0.260 .030
Employed full timea 0.296 .683 −0.328 .490 1.142 .000
Manual workera 0.620 .439 1.366 .008 0.544 .001
Clerical joba 0.610 .593 1.067 .118 0.163 .340
Tertiary educationa 0.586 .350 −0.005 .990 0.576 .001
Post‐secondary, non‐tert. ed. −0.105 .935 0.165 .702 0.100 .602
Urban residencea 1.115 .099 0462 .250 1.858 .000
Studenta 0.250 .734 0.893 .070 0.297 .054
Constant −2.594 .005 −1542 .000 −3.786 .000
Networks Mana −1.017 .051 −0.176 .569 −0.057 .648
Age 26–35a 2.076 .001 −0.053 .870 0.297 .033
Friends & relatives abroada 1.323 .049 0.939 .002 1.008 .000
Single without childrena 1.437 .014 0.712 .052 0.849 .000
Employed full timea −0.418 .542 −0.122 .760 0.800 .000
Manual workera 0.539 .470 0.449 .266 0.799 .000
Clerical joba 0.459 .667 −0.446 .459 0.216 .279
Tertiary educationa −0.387 .484 −0.122 .731 0.189 .312
Post‐secondary, non‐tert. ed. 0.040 .967 −0.084 .827 0.211 .297
Urban residencea 0.850 .152 1.630 .000 1.359 .000
Studenta −0.860 .250 −0.260 .513 0.293 .086
Constant −3.242 .001 −2.719 .000 −3.867 .000
Job Mana −0.257 .574 0.188 .423 0.179 .099
Age 26–35a 1.087 .024 0.214 .394 0.340 .005
Friends & relatives abroada 0.759 .154 1.084 .000 0.821 .000
Single without childrena 1.241 .017 0.765 .004 0.927 .000
Employed full timea 0.019 .976 −0.044 .889 0.525 .000
Manual workera 1.315 .045 0.392 .220 0.522 .002
Clerical joba 1.152 .224 0.089 .836 0.083 .634
Tertiary educationa 0.316 .519 −0.352 .198 0.607 .000
Post‐secondary, non‐tert. ed. 1.117 .184 0.158 .583 0.226 .231
Urban residencea 0.966 .055 0.455 .072 1.358 .000
Studenta 0.761 .186 −0.392 .207 0.096 .507
Constant −3.047 .000 −1.083 .003 −3.561 .000
Education Mana −1.342 .023 0.192 .582 −0.014 .895
Age 26–35a 0.723 .265 −0.353 .319 −0.059 .605
Friends & relatives abroada −0.927 .156 −0.358 .287 0.436 .000
Single without childrena 2.048 .021 0.394 .412 1.194 .000
Employed full timea 0.165 .860 −0.337 .560 0.405 .014
Manual workera 1.241 .243 0.836 .168 1.053 .000
Clerical joba −13.748 .991 0.555 .453 0.629 .005
Tertiary educationa 1.740 .024 1.008 .011 1.548 .000
Post‐secondary, non‐tert. ed. −13.210 .989 −0.714 .251 0.808 .000
Urban residencea 16.457 .980 1.073 .017 1.149 .000
Studenta 2.459 .002 1.426 .003 2.308 .000
Constant −19.610 .976 −2.865 .000 −4.888 .000
Lifestyle Mana −0.845 .081 0.158 .560 −0.111 .286
Age 26–35a 1.852 .000 0.112 .699 0.358 .002
Friends & relatives abroada 0.681 .219 0.822 .002 0.593 .000
Single without childrena 1.751 .003 1.372 .000 1.404 .000
Employed full timea −0.355 .585 0.095 .792 0.638 .000
Manual workera 1.018 .142 0.428 .248 0.681 .000
Clerical joba 0.792 .439 0.114 .819 0.268 .122
Tertiary educationa −0.758 .141 −0.476 .136 0.534 .001
Post‐secondary, non‐tert. ed. 0.256 .767 −0.138 .684 0.498 .005
Urban residencea 1.054 .054 0.725 .021 1.114 .000
Studenta 0.037 .953 −0.088 .804 0.548 .000
Constant −2.859 .001 −2.292 .000 −3.540 .000
Pseudo R 0.182 0.081 0.153
N 266 711 4,556

Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. Three multinomial regressions with motivation of the first migration as dependent variables. Residential motivation
is the reference category for the dependent variable. NUTS3 are used to control for regional effects (cluster command in STATA) and to generate robust
standard errors.aThe data indicate dummy variables. Rural‐urban residence, employment and civil status variables are measured for the period before the
first emigration. Unweighted data. Running the models with a weighting variable increases their explanatory power but reduces their sociological interpret-
ability. This could be the effect of using the same variables for prediction and for weighting.
16 of 16 SANDU ET AL.

Annex 4: Percentage of youth considering that being together with friends and relatives abroad is an important
criterion for migration decision‐making

Type of migration experience

Voluntary stayer Involuntary stayer Onetime returnee Circular migrant Total

Romania 77 69 52 59 72
LV SI 79 72 59 61 74
IT ES 66 55 60 66 61
UK IE DE SE 67 65 63 68 66

Data sources: YMOBILITY survey 2015. Example: 52% out of the one‐time young returnees from Romania consider that is important having friends or rel-
atives abroad in the mobility decision making. Weighted data.