The Devil Is in the Detail: Measuring Intra-EU Labour Migration 47 across 35 European countries (GESIS, 2019). The sampling units are dwellings, household or individuals depending on the country-specific sampling frames and it provides an important source of statistics regarding trends in the EU labour market and cross-border labour mobility (Eurostat, 2017c)7. The EU-LFS is conducted by National Statistical Institutes across Europe and is then processed centrally by Eurostat. The data is collected mainly through direct interviews, although proxy interviews are also possible, and some of the data can be supplied through alternative sources such as administration registers. In some countries, participation in the survey is compulsory (GESIS, 2019). This all ensures that the EU-LFS is a valuable resource for analysing the movement of labour as it uses comparative methodology across all countries, it is regularly conducted, and it provides information on employment, nationality and broad country of birth in a large sample size. The EU-LFS enables us to analyse intra-EU labour migration as it identifies both country of birth and labour force status for individuals, plus it includes population weights. There are two methods for identifying migrants, either country of birth or country of citizenship. Nevertheless, data on the place of birth is the preferred source as there is a large degree of variance in citizenship policy across countries and thus citizenship is often considered an unreliable method for measuring mobility (Eurostat, 2018). For example, in order to naturalise in Austria, 10 years of residency is required whereas Belgium requires only three years. There are three main limitations for using of the EU-LFS to construct indicators for intra-EU labour migration: 1. Short-term migration such as seasonal migration is unlikely to be captured in the survey because these groups stay for a limited amount of time in their host country (Galgóczi et al., 2009). 2. The possibility that intra-EU labour migrants are underrepresented in the survey. 3. The possible bias arising from dropping missing values – if groups that share the same characteristics are systematically dropped. For the database, I create intra-EU labour migration indicators for 16 European countries8, from 2004 up until 2016. These countries were selected because they participate in the EU’s area of free movement, and they consist of key destination countries for intra-EU labour migrants. I would have included Norway, as it has similar characteristics to the countries chosen but the data on migrants on Norway was withheld from the EU-LFS on the basis that the sample of migrants was not considered representative. Moreover, that sample sizes of intra-EU labour migrants in the EU-13 are very small and more likely to be subject to bias. 7 More detailed information can be found on the Eurostat website or in the EU-LFS explanatory notes (Eurostat, 2017b). 8 Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom.
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