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To what extent did the EU 2004 enlargement lead to the projected outflow of health professionals from newly admitted Central and Eastern European Member States?

Klose, Stephan (2011) To what extent did the EU 2004 enlargement lead to the projected outflow of health professionals from newly admitted Central and Eastern European Member States?

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Abstract:It was in 2004, when eight Central and Eastern European countries came to enter the European Union. At this time, international organisations and national governments feared that the day of enlargement could mark the start of a mass migration of health workers within the European Union. In 2002, a survey conducted among health professionals in Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia revealed that 25-50 per cent of all interviewees considered migrating towards another EU country. This paper aims to find out whether the forecasted health worker outflow in Central and Eastern Europe has become reality between 01/05/2004 and 31/12/2007 following the Research Question: To what extent did the EU 2004 enlargement lead to the projected outflow of health professionals from newly admitted Central and Eastern European member states? The research question will be analysed by comparing data of the pre-enlargement survey with the actual emigration rates in the three new Member States of Poland, Hungary and Estonia. Furthermore, the study applies its results to important models of modern migration theory and examines the role and impact of the European Union on inner-European migration patterns. As a result, it can be said that the actual outflow of health professionals from the three countries of observation turned out to be far below the outcome that was predicted by the pre-enlargement survey and suggested by classical migration theories as Ravensteins’ “Laws of Migration”. In this regard, the classical theories which mainly focus on economic factors, failed to explain the low emigration outflow of health workers despite high migration potential in terms of economic incentives. All together, the outcome of the study suggests that the complex and diverse international environment of the European Union calls for a more comprehensive approach to describe migration currents and gives a stronger emphasis to social and political factors next to the evaluation of economic variables.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:88 social and public administration
Programme:European Studies BSc (56627)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61123
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