The places I’m asking about in the title are localities, communes and cities, and the regions they belong to. I mean, in particular, the development regions in Romania. Except those who left what are the departure points or what will they be? Poorer or richer? Left behind or with a positive role as leaders in development?

The questions seem simple, but they are not. Correct answers can only be given through imaginary experiments. How will yesterday’s emigration affect the places of emigration if we “control” as in a giant experiment for many other important determinants? Here it is impossible to provide simple tables with more than three thousand settlements with administrative status in Romania, organized by city and village, development regions, accessibility to large cities, demographic size of settlements, characteristics of emigration, etc. For lovers of technical details, these aspects are presented in three tables in the appendix. For those who do not like such analyses, only the conclusions and interpretations can be followed and discussed.

They usually work with simplifications like “in country x, immigration has y consequences at the local level.” It may be so, but situations can be, and often are, even more complicated. How important are regions in the context of links between emigration and poverty and local development? But if, in addition to regional effects, the influence of other factors is evaluated?

Regardless of what it is called, the second phrase of analysis after emigration is poverty – local development. To assess this aspect, we used the Local Human Development Index (LHDI). Based on available data, we adapted the UNDP model for the Human Development Index (Sandu et al. 2020). We considered that a locality, commune or city is more developed if it has a more extensive network of Internet subscriptions, a better living situation and a lower standardized mortality rate.

We try to answer such questions in a simplified, first form, in the following text. First, we will consider the interrelations of interests as if there were no regional differentiation. Subsequently, we examine the same relationships for each of the eight developmental regions or by including the corresponding regions in the explanatory model.

The first hypothesis from which we proceed states that high emigration abroad in the past brings poverty, as well as aging and diminishing sources of income in local budgets (Sandu 2019). Instead, according to the second hypothesis, we formulate expectations that heavy emigration in the past brought better housing quality through remittances, the money emigrants sent home. The third hypothesis states that emigration has differentiated consequences at the outset, depending on the country of destination: emigration to highly developed countries such as Germany or the UK is expected to lead to higher levels of human development (HD), especially at the level of living conditions, in contrast to emigration directed mainly to poorer countries such as Italy. Fourth, on theoretical grounds (Wimmer & Schiller 2002) it is expected that so that development regions function as a matrix and cause differentiation in the relationship between migration and development.

The data with which we test the hypotheses refer to the development of settlements before the COVID pandemic in 2018, respectively, and emigration is estimated from the 2011 and 2002 census data. The analysis can be resumed when public data become available, at the local level, for periods closer to the present, based on either the 2021 census or vital statistics.

Emigration that matters

The first of these research hypotheses is refuted by the data in the first version of the analysis. Previous local emigration (2011) is not significant for the level of human development of the same area in 2018 (Table 1) other things being equal, that is, taking into account other factors, such as proximity to large cities, rural or urban affiliation of the settlement, its degree of local development in 2002, etc. Why is this so? Older analyzes indicated a different situation in the sense that this relationship was significantly positive, intensive emigration-type departures, especially from more developed areas (Ionescu-Heroiu et al. 2013). The change appears to have occurred due to the accumulation of negative effects, with cumulative emigration over time eroding the positive and significant relationship to a statistically insignificant one.

Over time, the relationship between emigration and local development seems to have acquired other values. In 2018, when we measured local development, compared to 2011, when we used census data to estimate the number of people who temporarily leave an area, destination country also started to matter. Many outflows to highly developed countries such as Germany and France encourage development at the destination, while intensive outflows to southern countries such as Italy cause poverty.. The more well-defined analysis models we are currently working with also point to a new aspect. Although emigration does not cause significant poverty or development, it appears that emigration has a strong impact on some component of local development. More precisely, living conditions in places of emigration seem to be positively affected by emigration if it is mainly to destination countries such as Germany or France. in return the localities that emigrated to Italy seem to have undergone a process of impoverishment and backwardness over time (Table 1).

Included in the same logic of the selectivity of the effects of emigration depending on the country of destination is the link between Internet connectivity at the local level and emigration to a particular destination. The regions from which they emigrated, especially to France, tend to have better local Internet networks (increasing the share of Internet subscriptions in households). Conversely, the impact on the communication network looks opposite, negative, if emigration occurs mainly to Italy..

The regional context of the consequences of emigration

Next, we turn to the relationship between emigration and development in each of the development regions in Romania (NUT 2, the administrative language of the EU). They are closer to analytical regions than to normative ones (Eurostat 2005).

For the most part, for seven of Romania’s eight development regions, the relationship between emigration and local human development is poorly structured (Table 2), as in the analysis at the national level. The only exception is the North-West region (consisting of the counties of Bihor, Satu Mare, Maramures, Salai, Bistrica-Neseud and Cluj), where areas with intensive emigration tend to be less developed. It is not clear why this exception occurs. In addition, this region in the north-west of the country tends towards less developed settlements with strong emigration to Spain. Further analysis is needed to make the connection clear.

The selectivity of the impact of emigration on the human development of localities is no longer found in the regional approach. To illustrate this point, we refer to the north-eastern region, which mostly coincides with the counties whose emigration is mainly directed towards Italy. Analysis at the national level found that emigration to Italy tends to lead to local poverty (Table 1). When the analysis is performed region by region (Table 2), the previous relationship no longer appears to be significant. why Very likely because emigration to Italy is the dominant rule for northeastern areas. Under these conditions, when the analysis is focused on the northeastern region, the relationship between emigration and the local orientation of emigration to Italy no longer appears to be significant. It is very likely that the lack of connection between emigration to Germany and a high level of development can be interpreted in the same way. Departures to Germany are typical for the central and western regions, and to France – mainly for the northwestern regions (the patterns obtained as a result of the analysis are not presented here, but are based on available data).

One of the regularities that persists without exception at both the regional and national levels is the one related to the positive impact of temporary employment outside the place of residence, but in Romania, on local human development: the higher the share of the local population employed in another area of ​​the country, the higher the level of development of the corresponding area, as a rule,. This is the case when we do the analysis for all localities, as well as when we do it region by region (compare Tables 1 and 2). The conclusion supports the idea that patterns found at the national level are no longer statistically significant if the regional specificity also includes the intensity of the reference phenomenon.

The same discrepancy between regional configurations of urban accessibility, the degree of urbanization and the demographic size of settlements makes the patterns recorded in the general approach of settlements (Table 1) largely coincide with the patterns revealed as a result of the regional analysis.

However, if we clarify the regional context by adding development regions as predictors (Table 3), we get a different picture. With such an optimal approach in terms of the degree of specification, we will find that hypothesis 1 is correct and a high level of cumulative emigration from the area in 2011 predicts a lower value of local human development in 2018. The hypothesis about the selectivity of emigration’s influence on local human development depending on the country of destination was also confirmed. Emigration to Germany and Great Britain brings local development, especially in terms of the material capital of the area from which the emigrants left.

Conclusions and discussion

The approach to the relationship between emigration and the development of poverty at the local level has proven to be fruitful, even if the data used is older, predating the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All four hypotheses of the analysis are supported as such or have nuances. The relationships become clearer when the analysis model is better specified, as in Table 3. The expectation that temporary emigration significantly contributes to the decline in local development is confirmed (Table 3). Places with more emigrants to other countries receive more money through remittances, which are largely invested in housing modernization or in business, which can lead to an increase in local budgets (Table 1). If development regions are introduced as predictors, the level of emigration no longer has a significant effect on local material capital. However, the influence of emigration to Germany on the material capital of the area remains positive and significant (Table 3).

Regardless of the analysis model, as it follows from the structuring of the data in the three tables in the appendix, temporary departures from the area, to the country, contribute to the development of areas. Internal migration or temporary departure is a much more stable and effective process of stimulating development in the places of origin compared to temporary departure to other countries. –Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro