The Devil Is in the Detail: Measuring Intra-EU Labour Migration 43 term: “an international migrant who changes his or her place of usual residence for at least one year is defined as a long-term migrant, while a person who changes his or her place of usual residence for more than three months but less than one year is considered to be a short-term migrant” (UN-DESA, 2015, p. 1). Despite this standardised definition, considerable variation in the way countries choose to identify international migrants for statistical purposes still exists. For example, while many EU countries use ‘duration of stay’ as the de facto approach for identifying immigrants, the qualifying length of the stay varies between countries (Fassmann, 2009). The majority of EU countries define a migrant as someone who intends to stay between 3 months and 1 year. A number of countries use intended duration of stay because waiting on a measure of actual duration would mean that the data is quickly outdated. However, self-reporting is problematic because many migrants may not know or be prepared to state their intentions (Fassmann, 2009). Furthermore, countries that adhere to the oneyear rule (Cyprus, Finland, Sweden, and the UK) do not always separately identify short-term migrants, which has the disadvantage of not capturing seasonal migration. In Germany, any person taking up residence is considered a migrant, which captures virtually all types of movement. Poland and Slovakia, on the other hand, use a very restrictive measure for immigration and define a migrant as someone who carries out a ‘permanent’ change of residence. Very narrow or broad definitions can result in lower or higher levels of migration in relation to other countries (de Beer et al., 2010).3 This is further complicated because the method a country uses to define or measure the length of stay can also vary. For example, by taking into account the length of the permit granted or by using the date an individual first registered in the destination country (de Beer et al., 2010; Laczko, 2015). Likewise, the definition of an emigrant can also vary. In Austria an individual must leave the country for more than three months, in Belgium it is six months, Finland one year, and in Romania an individual must indicate that they are planning on leaving for good (DeWaard, Kim, & Raymer, 2012; Fassmann, 2009; Koikkalainen, 2011). Furthermore, because of ‘rights to resettle’ individuals with certain ethnic backgrounds settling in particular countries are not considered immigrants but returning nationals. For example, more than 2 million ethnic Germans returned to Germany between 1991 and 2005 (Fassmann, 2009)4. Consequently, publicly available data on international migration can be inconsistent ensuring limitations regarding cross-country comparability. While the solution would be to require countries to apply uniform duration criteria, such as the UN definition, the reality is not so straightforward. National Statistical 3 Discrepancies also arise because some countries include international students in their statistics and others do not. 4 This is also the case for Romanians of Hungarian origin wishing to return and resettle in Hungary, as well as Moldovans originally of Romanian origin returning to Romania.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw