On the footsteps of parents? Migration experience and aspirations of university students in Moldova

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the impact of parental migration on the migration aspirations of university students in Moldova. Through 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews with university students, the article aims to answer the questions of what shapes the migration aspirations of young students and whether and to what extent their parents’ migration experience impacts this process. The findings show that young Moldovan students are mainly pushed to emigrate by very low living standards, economic and political uncertainty and pulled abroad by better job offers and higher incomes. Highly skilled positions and short-term stays abroad were preferred, corresponding more to the new economics of labour migration concept than the neoclassical economics model. The study results question the validity of the cumulative causation theory, as there was only a mixed indication that parents’ former migratory experience strengthens their child’s pro-migration aspirations.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture of migration
• cumulative causation theory
• migration aspirations
• Moldova

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the support provided by the Department of Demography and Geodemography and the Erasmus+ Credit mobility, which allowed the key authors to stay in Moldova and conduct the research. Moreover, we would like to acknowledge the cooperation with Geographic Migration Centre. We would like to also thank Liuba Chirilov and Elena Soldan for helping translate some quotations and Joe Hill for providing English proofreading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Charles University, Faculty of Science, approval number 2023/15.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Grantová Agentura České Republiky [GA16-22194S].

Notes on contributors

Eliška Masná

Eliška Masná is a Social Geography and Regional Development doctoral candidate at Charles University in the Czech Republic. She is interested in examining factors influencing (im)mobility aspirations and decision-making. She currently works towards her dissertation on shaping migration aspirations in the context of slow-onset environmental changes. Regionally, she is focused on Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Cristina Avram

Cristina Avram has a PhD in Demography. Her dissertation topic was “Demographic transition, population growth, demographic ageing - interrelations and development contexts at the regional level.” She is a teaching assistant in the Department of Demography and Geodemography at Charles University, Czechia. At the same time, she works as a project manager in Médecins Sans Frontières Shared IT Services.

Dušan Drbohlav

Dušan Drbohlav is a full professor for the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Faculty of Science, Charles University, in Prague. He leads the research team of the GEOMIGRACE (Geographic Migration Centre - www.geomigrace.cz). He specializes in exploring international migration issues and immigrants´ integration into host societies. He participated in working on research projects for many domestic and foreign subjects, like, for example, the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic, the Czech Science Foundation, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the NATO, the IOM and the UNHCR. He mainly published about migration/integration issues about 150 articles and chapters in books (both in Czechia and abroad) and contributed as an author or editor to eight books.

Natalya Kadatskaya

Natalya Kadatskaya is a researcher at Charles University, Prague, with a focus on population development and population forecasts in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA). Her research activities have included participation in several research initiatives in Moldova between 2015 and 2021. These projects include collaborating with the Future Institute to develop socio-demographic and economic segments of the population to customize family planning recommendations supported by UNFPA EECARO; conducting the survey on population climate with support from the Czech Development Agency, etc. Overall, her research activities involve studying demographic trends and conducting research to understand population dynamics in the EECA region better.