Potential Emigration in Bulgaria and Social Acceptance of Foreign Immigrants in the Country

During the last three decades, international migration is a key factor in the demographic development of Bulgaria. Even though its impact decreases in the last few years, it still continues to reduce the Bulgarian population, and, through its selective functions, to introduce significant negative changes in important structures of the population, which are vital for its reproduction and labour power. It is crucial for the implementation of a certain migration policy not only to determine the scales of the migration flows in and out of the country, but also to study the people’s attitude to emigrate; the conditions and drivers that cause the migration processes, and the associated effects and changes in their scale and composition; people’s attitude toward Bulgarian and foreign migrants; other elements in the general migration behaviour. These and other issues are the subject of this paper. The current analysis is based on empirical data from the “Migration and national identity” survey, which was conducted in May 2018.