Assessing the Imprint of the Long-gone Hapsburg Empire's Border on the Romanian Students' Migration Intentions

This article aims to identify if belonging to one side or another of the former Hapsburg Empire's border matters in relation to migration intentions. Based on a survey of 3,051 students enrolled at three Romanian universities, and using geo-referencing, data mining tools, logistic regressions and prediction nomograms, we found that students who have their homes in different parts, depending on this historical border, manifest different sensitivity levels towards recognition of their own value and the poor quality of public institutions and services, as they have different perceptions concerning the role of individual freedom, parental role models, the work ethic and interpersonal trust. These differences further generate opposite migration intentions for the two sub-samples. Therefore, students who have their homes in the former Empire's area have lower migration intentions than those outside it, despite their proximity to the western borders. The results suggest various economic and non-economic determinants as important predictors of migration intentions.