Go West? Assessing the willingness to move from Central and Eastern European Countries

This paper uses cross national survey data to examine the willingness to move of residents from several Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). This is of particular relevance given that some of these countries will be part of the forthcoming enlargement of the EU, and hence individuals from these countries will eventually be allowed to move freely between member states. Whereas most previous studies have used aggregate data to forecast flows from the East following enlargement, the emphasis in this paper is on the reasons why individuals may not want to move and it is argued that these factors may outweigh the possible high rewards in the West for many individuals. It is found that although individuals in some of the CEECs display a relatively high willingness to move, overall, the willingness to move country is lower in the CEECs than it is in the EU. Furthermore, the availability of microdata enables the characteristics of those individuals who are most willing to move to be established and the evidence suggests that the most qualified individuals have the highest willingness to move.