Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T23:09:25.053Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Transition from Emigration to Immigration: Is it the Destiny of Modern European Countries?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2021

Get access

Summary

Purpose of this chapter

This book makes extensive use of two basic concepts: migration transition and the migration cycle. Expounded within its framework, the central premise of those concepts is such that, over time and under specific circumstances, individual European countries transform their migration status from one of emigration to one of immigration. This change in migration status has been termed the ‘migration transition’.

As explained in the Introduction of this volume, the ‘migration cycle’ in its more general sense involves three distinct, consecutive phases: the first occurs when a country is overwhelmed by the outflow of its inhabitants, while the proportion of foreign nationals in the total population continues to be marginal; the second begins when the migration transition takes place; and the third begins when immigration systematically predominates over emigration and foreigners constitute a considerable proportion of the population. The central part of the cycle, the migration transition, also involves distinct parts (i.e. stages), which can be distinguished according to a given country's degree of maturity in terms of its immigration pattern or regime (see chapter 2 in this volume). A sequence of the stages – from immature to mature immigration country – makes up the ‘migration cycle’ (or rather ‘immigration cycle’) in a narrower sense.

The main hypothesis underlying the analyses included in the present volume was that each European country finds itself in a specific stage of the immigration cycle. Consequently, countries included in the project were divided into three groups: the most advanced (‘old’), the moderately advanced (‘new’) and the least advanced (‘future’). As will be shown in part 3 of this chapter, of all countries analysed in depth in the present volume, Austria belongs to the first group (‘old’); Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain to the second group (‘new’); and the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to the third group (‘future’). Similarly, Ruby Gropas and Anna Triandafyllidou (2007) describe five types of European countries made distinct by their migration patterns: old host countries, recent host countries, countries in transition, small island countries and non-immigrant countries. Leaving aside ‘small islands’ (which include, according to Gropas and Triandafyllidou, Cyprus and Malta – and I would add Iceland here), this typology, apart from the three groups distinguished by the authors of this book, accounts for nonimmigration status, the status attributed to the Baltic States, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Type
Chapter
Information
European Immigrations
Trends, Structures and Policy Implications
, pp. 23 - 44
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×