WORKING PAPERS No. 3 Quantitative analysis of the objective and subjective aspects of youth migration in the Danube region Ekaterina Skoglund Zoltán Csányi WORKING PAPERSNo. 1 Quantitative analysis of the objective and subjective aspects of youth migration in the Danube region Ekaterina Skoglund Zoltán Csányi YOUMIG WORKING PAPERS SERIES This working paper was developed in the framework of the project YOUMIG – Improving institutional capacities and fostering cooperation to tackle the impacts of transnational youth migration. YOUMIG is a strategic project co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF, IPA) and Hungarian national funds under the European Union’s Danube Transnational Programme. Project code: DTP1-1-161-4.1 Lead Partner: Hungarian Central Statistical Office The working paper was prepared within the YOUMIG Work Package 4 “Improved measuring”, coordinated by the Leibniz-Institute for East and Southeast European Studies. The information published here reflects the authors’ views and the Managing Authority is not liable for any use that may be made of the information concerned. EDITOR OF ISSUE NO.3.: Béla Soltész BOARD OF SERIES EDITORS: Elisabeth Gruber, Tamás Kiss, Nóra Krokovay, Ekaterina Skoglund, Béla Soltész LAYOUT: Csilla Ilona Bada © 2019 Ekaterina Skoglund – Zoltán Csányi All Rights Reserved. Information for reproducing excerpts from this working paper can be found at http://www.interreg-danube. eu/youmig. Inquiries can also be directed to the Leibniz-Institute for East and Southeast European Studies at Landshuter Str. 4, D-93047 Regensburg, Germany or [email protected]. Suggested citation: Skoglund, E. and Csányi, Z. (2019): Quantitative analysis of the objective and subjective aspects of youth migration in the Danube region. Within the project YOUMIG. PUBLISHER Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Marcell Kovács, Head of Population Census and Demographic Statistics Department 1024 Budapest, Keleti Károly u. 5–7. Further copies may be requested at [email protected]. Printed by: Xerox Magyarország Kft. – 2019.027 AUTHORS Ekaterina Skoglund Ph.D completed her doctorate in Economics at the Uni- versity of Turin, Italy, with a thesis on “Subjective well-being in Russia”. She worked as a research assistant at the European Training Foundation in Turin for projects on labor market attachment and informality in the western Balkans. Until recently she was a postdoc researcher at IOS Regensburg, focusing on various aspects of individual experiences, such as subjective well-being, dis- crimination on the labor market based on gender and migratory background, inequality and social exclusion. She held a teaching fellowship with CERGE- EI, teaching courses in Economics of Inequality, Economics of Migration, De- mography, and Labor Economics at Irkutsk State University (Russia), Far East State University (Russia), Burch University (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and was a guest lecturer at Zeppelin University (Germany). Zoltán Csányi works at the Migration Statistics Section of the Hungarian Cen- tral Statistical Office and has participated in a number of international projects related to the use and quality of administrative data sources. He is a PhD candi- date in Sociology at the University of Barcelona, with a specialization in migra- tion decision-making. Csányi holds a degree in Economics, a Master’ degree in International Relations and also in International Migrations. He volunteered with migrants’ help associations in Spain and France. 3 Contents 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................7 2. Conceptual and Empirical Background .............................................................13 2.1. Conceptual bases of YOUMIG – A revised push and pull model (Working Paper No. 1) ....................................................................................13 2.2. Local status quo in YOUMIG municipalities – Developmental hierarchies, perceptions, and discourses (Working Paper No. 2) ......................................15 2.3. Background to YOUMIG quantitative research ..............................................17 2.3.1 The conceptualization of migration decision and policy implications ....17 2.3.2. YOUMIG research questions and data needs......................................21 3. Data - Indicator development in YOUMIG ..........................................................25 3.1. Definition of the audience and the purpose of measurement .........................25 3.2. Choice of priority areas and pre-selection of indicators .................................26 3.3. Selection of core indicators, specification, definitions ....................................28 3.4. Development of indicators and data sources .................................................36 3.5. Evaluation .......................................................................................................37 4. Analysis: The objective and subjective aspects of youth migration in the Danube region ...........................................................................................39 4.1. Descriptive analyses ......................................................................................39 4.1.1. Bulgaria – Burgas .................................................................................39 4.1.2. Hungary – Szeged ...............................................................................57 4.1.3. Romania – Sfântu Gheorghe ...............................................................77 4.1.4. Slovenia – Maribor ...............................................................................91 4.1.5. Slovakia – Bratislava-Rača ................................................................103 4.1.6. Serbia – Kanjiža ................................................................................. 114 4.2. Comparative analysis ...................................................................................126 4.2.1. Satisfaction with life and urban development .....................................126 4.2.2. Migration intentions ............................................................................132 5. Conclusion ..........................................................................................................139 References ..............................................................................................................141 Appendix .................................................................................................................147 5 1. Introduction The YOUMIG project was launched in 2017 with the participation of 19 partners from the Danube region, including research and statistical institutes, and municipalities. A clear objective of the project is to support local policymakers and enhance their ability to tackle the challenges arising from the process of youth migration, which affects, and in turn is also affected by the local socio- economic development contexts. In this paper, we address some of the insights from the quantitative data collected within the project, and illustrate their relevance to policy decisions in the sphere defined by the ‘youth-migration- local development’ triad. When migration processes are placed high on the political agenda, the mission of research – both empirical and theoretical – is to provide a solid base for evidence-based and well-targeted policies. The role of empirical research – quantitative in our case – for policymaking is threefold: descriptive, evaluative, and conceptualizing. For the first, high-quality data on the trends of socio-economic development are required in order to identify fields for policy intervention. For the second, longitudinal data are required in order to evaluate the performance of the policies implemented, e.g., changes in the behavior of the target population. For the third, empirical research can, sometimes indirectly, support the conceptualization of processes impacted by the policies to identify and explain the factors that can alter – provoke or inhibit – human behavior. First and foremost, the YOUMIG Project aimed to play the first, descriptive role of empirical research. The project only included elements of the longitudinal approach for evaluation purposes, namely a collection of data extending back over an entire decade for some of the indicators. Within the framework created, we encourage municipal partners to continue data collection exercises beyond the relatively short time span of the project. In addition, YOUMIG has indirectly addressed some conceptual concerns of migration research. We hope that, 7 1. Introduction although it is rather descriptive in nature, the present text can contribute some of the missing empirical pieces of the theoretical puzzles to be solved in future scholarly debates. An important unique feature of YOUMIG is its focus on the local level. While both quantitative research and policymaking are generally conducted at the national level, during the implementation phase, multiple challenges and opportunities related to migration appear at the local level. Yet, local level data collection are fragmented and often non-systematic, as our project confirmed based on the example of the Danube region. In this sense, subnational level indicator development, data collection and production should be seen, first and foremost, as a means of creating data for the purposes of describing – and only indirectly of conceptualizing – local processes. The present YOUMIG Working Paper builds on previous phases