Migration aspirations & decisions: a comparative study of Turkey and Ukraine

Abstract

Our paper analyses the intellectual perspectives of international migration based on its biases and underdeveloped aspects. We employ the empirical data from the survey questionnaire conducted in Turkey and Ukraine within the framework of the EU-funded EUMAGINE project with over 8.000 respondents. The aim of the research was to determine how Europe is perceived from outside the EU, and how these perceptions affect migration aspirations and decisions of potential migrants. We assess the impact of demographic, structural and socio-cultural determinants of migration expectations, and draw the prospects for future studies on non-economic determinants of external migration. Our main findings show that potential migrants can be divided into two streams of “euro-optimists” and “euro-pessimists” depending on such factors as social background, human and intellectual characteristics as well as other factors.