Patterns of Romanian emigration: is there a brain drain?

Elisabeta Minca, Brown University

This paper examines individual, social and spatial determinants of international migration from Romania, with a specific focus on the highly skilled, using two sets of Romanian census data. Results show that migration rate is unevenly distributed across the 42 Romanian counties, and there is positive and significant spatial autocorrelation in the migration rate. Long-term migrants are more likely to come from counties with high levels of education, while short-term migrants tend to come from counties with low levels of education, although they themselves are more likely to be highly educated. Short-term migrants are more likely to be males, ethnic minority, married, to come from urban environments, and less likely to be unemployed and parents. Context matters as both regional and county level variables have significant effects on the likelihood to migrate. The effect of individual level education is stronger in the household fixed effects model predicting the likelihood to migrate.