Characteristics of Eastern European Immigration in the United States. (22 -SEP -08) Journ ... Page 1 of 13 Characteristics of Eastern European Immigration in the United States.(Report) Source: Journal of Comparative Family Studies Publication Date: 22-SEP-08 INTRODUCTION In the last centuries, Eastern Europe has been characterized by dramatic socio-political and economic transformations. Countries were formed and revised, political ideologies were imposed and then dropped leaving lasting marks on individuals and families. Immigration from that region towards United States mirrors this region's course of events, registering various trends throughout the history. The recent overall increase in the number of immigrants in the US has been calling for more research on the immigrant adaptation processes. Although the literature on some immigrant groups has been enriched in the past years, the research on Eastern European (EE) immigrants has been lacking. This may be explained by the fact, that the communist regimes of more than half a century significantly limited the emigration from this region. The fall of communism in late 1980s and the post-communist socio- economic and political transition determined a resurgence of EE immigrants as a new phenomenon and require their systematic study. Examining EE immigrants will increase the understanding of today's diverse immigrant population and their adaptation in the host society. The purpose of this article is to facilitate an understanding of the characteristics of Eastern European immigration. Systematic research on EE immigrants can help advance the current knowledge on Eastern European immigrants and how they adapt to the United States. As such, the goal of the study is to examine Eastern European immigrants' human capital (education level), length of US residence and their adaptation, as measured by income and possession of health insurance. FACTORS IMPACTING THE EASTERN EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION PROCESS Immigration Policies The immigration process is determined largely by the immigration laws of the receiving countries. These policies regulate the characteristics of the immigrant cohorts, indicating how many people are allowed to immigrate, their nationalities, and their human capital (education levels, occupations). Following is a brief summary of these policies, with a focus on their impact on Eastern European immigration. Until the later 1800s, immigrants entered freely into the United States. Later on, several immigration acts in 1875, 1903, and 1917 limited the number of immigrants on a variety of moral, economic and physical grounds (Edmonston, and Passel, 1994; U.S. INS, 1991). Until 1860, almost all immigrants to US were from Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom. After 1860, a growing number came form Scandinavia, Asia, and South America. Another shift occurred in the 1880s with a considerably increase in the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, mainly from Austria-Hungary, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Russia peaking with several years of over one million per year in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Immigration lessened during the World War I but increased again after the war (Edmonston, and Passel, 1994; U.S. INS, 1991). In 1921 the Quota Act was passed which limited immigration to 3 percent of the foreign-born population by national origin groups in the US. This restricted sharply the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe (and favored those from Western Europe since these were the largest groups in the US). After the World War II changes were made again to the immigration laws. The 1952 Act introduced a preference structure with separate categories for types of relatives and worker skills, but it retained the national origins quotas. In 1965 amendments eliminated the national origins quotas and gave preferences to family members of US citizens and legal residents. While before 1965 the immigration was predominantly from Europe, after that the immigration from Asia and Latin America has steadily increased, and that from Europe decreased. The Immigration Act of 1990 revised the immigration laws, supporting family reunification, imposing labor shortages-restructuring the number of visas for unskilled workers and increasing the number of visas for priority workers and professionals with US job offers, encouraging entrepreneurial immigrants (investors), and promoting a more diverse immigrant stream by using a ''diversity visas" for underrepresented countries, Eastern European countries being included (Edmonston, and Passel, 1994; U.S. INS, 1991). Contemporary Eastern European Context http://www.accessmylibrary.com/comsite5/bin/aml_landing_tt.pl?purchase_type=ITM&ite... 3/19/2009 Characteristics of Eastern European Immigration in the United States. (22 -SEP -08) Journ ... Page 2 of 13 During the communist time in Eastern Europe, the immigration to US came mainly from capitalist countries. Also, the United States was more involved in capitalist countries than in the socialist ones (Yang, 1995). The patterns of immigration to the United States are related to the U.S. military, political, economic and cultural interests and involvement in the sending regions and countries (Rumbaut and Portes, 2001). These interests and ties increase the opportunities for immigration. Since the fall of the communist regime in the Eastern Europe, the involvement of U.S. (and other western countries) in this region has increased. For example after 1990 NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance of 26 countries from North America and Europe) incorporated several Eastern European countries: Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1997; in 2004 Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia, and three aspirants, Albania, Croatia, and the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, hope to be invited to join NATO in the future (NATO Transformed, 2005). The aim of each round of enlargement has been to extend Euro-Atlantic security and to increase NATO's strength, and cohesion. This involvement of the U.S. in EE suggests that the number of EE immigrants will continue increase considerably in the future. After spending decades under basically the same political authority and central economy, the transformation phase began in all the ex-communist EE countries. The post-communist inter- and intra- country differences started to widen rapidly, due partly to the different speeds at which the market economies were developing (Robila, 2004). Today there is a wide variation of socio-economic development among Eastern European countries. For example, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in 2004 varies from $19,600 in Slovenia, $16,800 in Czech Republic, $14,500 in Slovakia, $12,000 in Poland, $9,800 in Russia, $8,200 in Bulgaria, $7,700 in Romania, $6,300 in Ukraine, to $2,400 in Serbia and Montenegro, and $1,900 in Moldova (U.S. GDP per capita: $40,100) (CIA, 2005). The EE nations began to integrate into the international economy in 1990. As a result, their non-capitalist patterns of social and economic organizations were changed (Massey et al., 1998). In the process of democratization and transition to a market economy, a large number of people in Eastern Europe were displaced from their secure living arrangements, many of them losing their previously stable jobs in the state-owned industries when these closed due to their inefficiency. Unemployment rates reached 30% in Serbia, 19.5% in Poland and 12.7% in Bulgaria (CIA, 2005). The economic situation pushed many people to emigrate abroad for work. While under communism the mobility had been very low and dominated by state-sponsored activities, after its fall, mobility rose considerably. Studies conducted in Poland (Okolski, et al., 1995), Lithuania (Sipavicience, Ciurlonyte, and Kanopiene, 1995) and Ukraine (Pyrozhkov, Malinovskaya, and Marcenko, 1995) indicate that, in general, the more integrated a country is with Western markets, the higher the rate of out-migration. In this case the mobility was greatest in Poland, followed by Lithuania and then Ukraine. It is therefore expected that, as market forces penetrate more deeply, geographically, socially and economically into the Eastern European countries, the out-migration to West will increase (Massey et al., 1998). Similarly, the more integrated the country is with Western markets the better the country is developed and the better prepared its people are to immigrate (Robila, 2007). Types and Numbers of Immigrants Earlier flows of Eastern European immigrants consisted in majority of manual workers-labor migrants in search of menial, agricultural, and generally low paid jobs. They settled along the north-and mid-Atlantic regions, mainly due to the proximity of their home-lands, which would make their trip from home and return(s) less expensive. However, some Central and Eastern European groups settled in Midwest due to the turn-of-the-century development of industry (e.g., auto-making) and to the minimal skills required by these jobs (Portes, and Rumbaut, 1990). For example, in 1980, only 5% of the population living in Ohio reported foreign ancestry, but those represented 15% of all nation's Croatians, 14% of Hungarians, 15% of Serbians, 22% of Slovakians, and 45% of Slovenes (Lieberson, and Waters, 1987). Other EE immigrants settled as Midwest farmers (e.g., in Iowa, Wisconsin). In mid-1800s, many of them formed the well-known Czech enclaves which attracted Czech immigrants throughout the century (Allen and