Lower unemployment, higher wages or open-door policy? The triggers of labour emigration from “new” to “old” EU member states after EU enlargement

Pawel A. Strzelecki, Warsaw School of Economics

The aim of this study is to determine the main factors that have trigger emigration from “new” member states to “old” member states after 2004. The analysis makes use of the panel data regression to explain the net emigration from new member state countries. The set of potential explanatory variables includes: differences in wages between home and host countries, differences in unemployment rates between home and host countries and variable that identified the open-door policy and a possible novelty effect of the opening of the labour market. The analysis uses also variables that identify the size of the population aged 20-35 i.e. the group usually most exposed to emigration. Draft results suggest that differences in unemployment rates between sending and receiving countries seemed to be the most important for changes in the short term emigration.