Recent results on labour force movement intentions of Hungarians after the EU accession
TÁRKI communiqué on The Irish Times 13th August 2002 article
The Irish Times on August 13 has published an article on possible Hungarian migrants to EU after the accession. The journal referred to the Hungarian daily Magyar Hírlap. The heading of the Irish Times article mentioned a possible EU influx of 800,000 Hungarian migrants.
We would like to make comments as follows:
1. The original Hungarian article headlined a shrinking migration potential of Hungarians in recent years. TARKI Social Research Centre in a May 2001 survey of migration potential found some 7 per cent of the total sample who declared a definite intention to take a job somewhere in the EU after the accession. An additional 7 per cent declared their migration intention as “likely”. The May 2002 survey on a 1500 sample of 18+ population found 4 and 6 per cents, respectively.
2. These are results from public opinion poll surveys. Previous research shows that this type of survey tends to overestimate the “real” or actual behavioural responses. In addition, research on Hungarian internal migration shows that labour force mobility is very low during the career of Hungarians. Therefore, it is justified to assume that the results of the survey are over estimations and as such, they should be interpreted with caution, especially when immediate policy conclusions are to be drawn.
3. Ireland is not a target country for the Hungarians in this respect. In the 2001 sample there was a question about possible target countries of Hungarian workforce. In the total sample there were no respondents preferring Ireland as a potential place to go.
As the original and the Irish article said wrongly “Some 5 per cent of Hungarians aged above 18 have expressed an intention to live and work in other EU countries for longer than two years after accession”. For the correction and clarification please find attached two tables below. As the results show, 2.6 per cent of total sample (about 200,000 people) would stay more than two years or permanently in one of the EU countries after the accession.
Table 1. Job taking intention of Hungarians in May 2002 (per cent of total respondents, 18+ population)
Table 2. Job taking intention of Hungarians in May 2002 (estimate for Hungary, 18+ population, 1000 persons)
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