During my Fellowship my activity had both a research oriented and a policy component. The first aim was to assess the economic, social, political and cultural dimensions of the research problem. The second objective was to look for the possibilities to build a coalition of political, civil, administrative and other stakeholders in order to promote international and regional cross border co-operation efforts in the field of harmonisation of the regulations concerning labour migration and social security.

The research work included:

- Comparative analysis of legislation and policies concerning cross border labour migration and social security in Romania, Hungary and the Ukraine

• Survey of values and attitudes regarding migration of labor and “guest woker” phenomenon in selected micro regions of Ukraine, Hungary and Romania
• Interviews with guest workers and their families, employers, representatives of local governments, labor and social security offices and NGOs
• Study of the dynamics of political, civil and population attitudes concerning the new legislation and political context which emerged after the adoption of Hungarian-Romanian Agreement regarding the implementation of the Status Law (from January 2002), through media research.

The indicators measured included:

• the occupational structure of population;
• the proportion of active and inactive population segments;
• the rate of unemployment; the proportion of population living below the poverty line,
• demographic characteristics (population distribution according to gender, age, family structures etc.),
• data concerning disadvantaged groups, ethnic and national minorities (with particular focus on the situation of Roma),
• information concerning migration of work force and definitive resettlement.

The main research techniques employed has been:

1.Analysis of relevant statistical and other information included in official documents, journals, newspapers and specialized literature in the field

2. Empirical data collected by various methods

• survey of population values and attitudes concerning cross border labor migration on a representative sample from selected rural and urban areas (in Hungary 22, in Romania 13, in Ukraine 11 localities)
• Interviews with guest workers and their families, residential migrants, representatives of local governments, NGO-s and members of the political elite.
• Content analysis of opinion poll results and media reports. This method proved particularly useful in assessing the shift in population attitude and the changed political context in the months following the adoption of the Hungarian-Romanian declaration concerning the implementation of the status law.
• Case studies of selected local communities from Romania (12) and Ukraine (9)

• secondary analysis of existing research data

Simultaneously with the data collecting process, my efforts focused on the elaboration of unitary criteria for research data analysis and interpretation; statistical analysis of survey data; discussion and comparative interpretation of survey and interview results and further refining my typology of cross border migration and migrants. 

During my research work I was assisted by my external mentor Professor Csaba Béres of the University of Debrecen and his colaborators from the Department of Sociology , who provided previous research data regarding cross-border co-operation and facilitated contacts and interviews with key stakeholders in Hungary. In the same time, I contacted specialists from the University of Ujgorod (Ukraine), who helped with background information, with facilitating access to documents and in establishing contacts.

Simultaneously with my field research, with the help of my external mentor Zsolt Szilagyi, a member of the Romanian Parliament, I identified and contacted the key institutions and decision-makers in Romania: the specialised committees of the Parliament, the ministries, and the local governments. My external mentor was of much help also in providing information concerning current legislation in the field and in discussing possible directions for policy action. The interviews with local government representatives also provided an opportunity for debating policy issues related to the necessity and possibilities for the harmonisation of legislative and institutional frameworks.

As a first step towards this process, in April 2002, a first meeting of the heads of county level administrative agencies dealing with labour and social security issues from the neighbouring Bihor (Romania) and Hajdú-Bihar (Hungary) regions held a meeting in Oradea. It was agreed to continue the consultations in order to identify solutions for dealing with illegal labour migration and the possibility to co-operate in this field.

Following the data collection and interpretation process, I organized a seminar in Oradea, with the participation of researchers, local authority and NGO trepresentatives. The outcome of the seminar have been suggestions regarding the improvement of existing legislation and the harmonisation of legal and institutional framework. These are being published and distributed to policy makers in the concerned countries and regions.

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