[BRIEF NOTE] Heading west in Europe
Dec. 9th, 2005 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe Economist ("The Brain-Drain Cycle") examines the phenomenon of emigration from central Europe to Britain since EU enlargement last year.
Britain isn't the only receiving country, with Ireland and Sweden similarly choosing to open up their markets fully to migrants from the east, and doubtless with unregulated and illegal migration to the other member-states. At least in press reports, it seems like the bulk of these emigrants come from Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, the poorest of the new member-states. The effects of this emigration in Latvia--now the poorest member-state in the European Union--seem to be particularly pressing, as Kevin Sullivan in The Washington Post ("East-to-West Migration Remaking Europe") describes Janis Neulans' efforts to find a job in wealthy Ireland, and as Dan Bilefsky in the International Herald Tribune describes ("Migration's flip side: All roads lead out") the broader effects of this emigration on Latvia.
One of his biggest problems is measuring the scale of the new migration. Official statistics underestimate the numbers, perhaps hugely. In Britain, where central Europeans are supposed to register before seeking work, but often do not, there are (supposedly) only 95 Polish plumbers. A tabloid newspaper managed to find that many in a day, using a postcard-sized advertisement in a Polish-populated part of west London. The total number of workers registered in Britain from the new members is supposedly only around 175,000. But by some accounts, there are 300,000 Poles alone (and another 100,000 in Ireland). Latvian officials think at least 50,000 people, or 2% of the population, have gone abroad to work; Lithuania estimates more than 100,000, or 3%.
Britain isn't the only receiving country, with Ireland and Sweden similarly choosing to open up their markets fully to migrants from the east, and doubtless with unregulated and illegal migration to the other member-states. At least in press reports, it seems like the bulk of these emigrants come from Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, the poorest of the new member-states. The effects of this emigration in Latvia--now the poorest member-state in the European Union--seem to be particularly pressing, as Kevin Sullivan in The Washington Post ("East-to-West Migration Remaking Europe") describes Janis Neulans' efforts to find a job in wealthy Ireland, and as Dan Bilefsky in the International Herald Tribune describes ("Migration's flip side: All roads lead out") the broader effects of this emigration on Latvia.
