Emerging Transnational Migration from Romanian Villages

This article presents the first results of a community census (December 2001) on temporary external migration at the level of all Romanian villages. Local key informants filled in the questionnaire on international temporary migration and its socio-demographic profile. As function of the key destinations, the Romanian villages cluster into six major migration fields: Germany, Hungary, Italy, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Spain. At a more detailed level, considering multiple destinations, those fields break into 15 regions of migration. Village-level analysis of the phenomenon indicates a strong selectivity of migration depending on village characteristics. About 4 percent of the total villages of the country account for more than 60 percent of the total return migration from abroad. These are villages of a high probability of transnationalism. Circular or transnational migration is shown to be connected with the basic characteristics of the migration system of the country: the villages where village to city commuting declined sharply after 1990 and where return migration from cities was high recorded a higher propensity for circular migration abroad. A set of about 2700 villages of high migration prevalence is described as ‘probable transnational communities’.