Romanian Labour Migration in the Context of EU Expansion

Abstract

In response to shifting borders and radical changes in political and economic regimes, a great number of Hungarian Romanians left their homeland in the last century. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Hungarian village in Romania, in this thesis I argue that the growing uncertainty in villagers’ working lives, a result of the high unemployment accompanying post-socialist transformation, and ethnic and class based disadvantage in Romania, impels them to engage in pluriactivity in their livelihood strategies. This includes circular labour migration in Hungary and other European Union states. Economic inequalities within the expanded EU create an ethnically segmented labour market, in which working class Transylvanian Hungarians become associated with certain types of work, in this case, temporary and often undocumented jobs in the least desirable sectors of the economy.