Kosovo – Winning its Independence but Losing its People? Recent Evidence on Emigration Intentions and Preparedness to Migrate

Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008, but substantial proportions of its population are expressing their lack of confidence by preparing to emigrate. In this paper, we present evidence from a customized post‐independence survey (1,367 face‐to face interviews) on emigration intentions in Kosovo, carried out in June 2008. Thirty per cent of the respondents from the Albanian‐speaking majority have taken concrete steps to move abroad, and emigration intentions have again risen to their pre‐independence peak. Strikingly, it is the better educated and those with higher incomes that are more likely to exit. Ethnic Serbs (the largest minority group) are less likely to emigrate than Kosovo’s ethnic majority.     

Family Migration Capital and Migration Intentions

Does a history of migration in the family influence one’s decision to move abroad? This paper argues that intergenerational transmission of ‘migration capital’ accumulated in the family is a significant determinant of current decisions to migrate. Using an ordered probit methodology to analyse data from a survey of 2161 respondents conducted in Latvia in 2007, we find support for our hypothesis: children of former migrants are more likely to migrate themselves, compared to people without family migration experience. The country of Latvia serves as an unusually instructive laboratory for our analysis due to the planned nature of its 1945–1991 immigration flows.