Chapter 2 Immigration and Integration Policy Context
2.4 Conclusion
The Czech immigration and integration policy has been developing since the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993. In this chapter, the important policies and events that have influenced the immigration to the Czech Republic were discussed. The economic situation in the Czech Republic has mostly influenced the openness or restriction of policies because most of immigration to the country is due to the economic reasons. Joining the European Union also has changed the country’s immigration policy framework to comply with the EU agenda. The change in the immigration policy in the last years calls for less bureaucracy and easier procedures to apply for a work permit and work in the Czech Republic legally. This would help the Czech firms to employ the foreign labour and combat the illegal employment of foreigners.
The Czech Republic is trying to learn from the Western countries that have experienced the immigration inflows in the past, and work on the successful integration of the immigrants. So far, the Czech government is created the Integration Centers, Czech language classes and other programs to help with the integration of foreigners. However, it is also important to add, that only the immigrants who expect to stay in the country long-term, will make the effort to learn the Czech language and integrate, and because of the restrictive policies to obtain long-term and permanent residence, many immigrants are unsure about their future in the Czech Republic. The government also recognizes the areas, where immigrants are discriminated such as hospitals. It is important to work to improve those specific problems.
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Chapter 3
Ukrainian Immigrants in the Czech Republic
Ukrainians are the largest immigrant community in the Czech Republic and in order to understand, why so many Ukrainians choose to emigrate and why they are willing to take any job available in the Czech Republic, it is important to introduce the statistics of emigration from Ukraine, the situation in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the impact of high numbers of emigration on the Ukrainian society.
In this chapter, the author starts with explaining why so many Ukrainians emigrate, why there are many Ukrainians, who are temporary migrants and work abroad illegally, and what is the negative impact of high emigration on Ukrainian society. Even though, the remittances emigrants send back to Ukraine from abroad make a considerable part of Ukrainian GDP and even create Ukrainian “middle-class”, there is an impact of broken families and abandoned children. The author also explains, why temporary migration may lead to permanent migration.
In the 90s, Ukrainians also came to the Czech Republic as temporary migrants, most of them stayed in the country as irregular migrants. The recent research and statistics on immigration show that Ukrainians are the highest recipients of permanent residence and citizenship, and are the largest immigrant community in the Czech Republic.
3.1 Ukrainian Migration and Social Profiles
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Ukraine has become a country of massive emigration, due to the economic and political situation in the country. During the time period between 1990-2014,
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Ukrainian population has decreased from almost 52 million people to about 45.5 million people or by 12.37 percent (Koshulko 2015, World Bank 2017). Based on the level of average income, Ukraine is placed among lower middle income countries (World Bank 2017).
It is hard to estimate the emigration rates from Ukraine, because of illegal and temporary emigration, but according to the World Bank estimate is up to 7 million emigrants annually (Duvell 2006). Based on the estimation, around 4 to 15 percent of Ukrainians work abroad, that is as much as 25 percent of Ukrainian working population (Duvell 2006, Keryk 2004). It is estimated that 5 million people are temporary migrants and 2 million are working abroad permanently (Keryk 2004).
The major destination countries for immigration are Russia, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and non-European countries such as the USA, United Arab Emirates and Argentina. In fact, almost half of all migrants go to Russia (Keryk 2004). The minimum wage in Poland is 7.9 times higher than in Ukraine, and in Spain minimum salary is almost 15 times higher, so there is no surprise that Ukrainians are trying to emigrate abroad permanently, or to find a short-term seasonal work (Koshulko 2015).
The remittances Ukrainian immigrants send back to Ukraine form a valuable part of the country’s GDP. The number of remittances estimates differs based on the sources and calculations, because a part of remittances are sent by illegal immigrants through unofficial channels. For instance, World Bank estimates $411 million USD annually (Duvell 2006). The other sources estimate remittances as high as 6 billion USD based on the assumption that each immigrant sends back home 100 USD per month. And in fact, this assumption is very conservative, because for instance, the majority of Ukrainian women working in Italy as caregivers send 400-600 Euro per
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legally; they mostly use friends or relatives to send money back home. Some immigrants might also avoid official channels because they do not want their income to be taxed by Ukrainian government.
Some studies suggest that in reality, the amount of remittances could be as much as 20 percent of Ukrainian GDP (Markov et al. 2009).
The term in Ukrainian language for a temporary migrant is zarobitchanyn (zarobitchanka for a female migrant). The term actually means a person who earns money because the meaning of the word “zarobitok” is income (Fedyuk 2006). Economic migration became a survival strategy for Ukrainian families to get over a difficult economic and political times in Ukraine. Khorma et al (2006) argue that in fact, this temporary migration phenomenon created a middle class in Ukraine.
The economic situation in Ukraine was hard in the second part of 90s, when the actual unemployment rates grew up to 40 percent, although the official statistics showed the rate of 12 percent (Luptak 2008, cited in Strielkowski and Rausser 2013). In the end of 90s, 80 percent of Ukrainians received their pay with delay of 2 to 6 months (Luptak and Drbohlav 1999). Moreover, a part of salary was paid in cheques and coupons, and even in kind (with building material or other products). The research done by Luptak and Drbohlav (1999) shows that only 1 percent of Ukrainians felt that their income was sufficient to live in the end of 90s. The research conducted by Wallace (2002) showed that only 8 percent of Ukrainians felt that their income was enough. Those outcomes showed that the majority of the Ukrainian citizens could not survive on their income.
Therefore, Ukrainians could not rely on one employment and either found a second employment in order to mitigate the risks of staying without pay or chose to migrate (Luptak and Drbohlav 1999).
The study conducted by Sidorenko (1995) showed that the reasons for short term migration were economic difficulties at home, and migration was a solution to improve the economic situation in the family. This might be the reason for high remittances from the migrants, because their primary reason to migrate was to maintain standard of living at home. Therefore, the major push factor that
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forces the emigration from Ukraine was the economic situation in the country (Drbohlav et al 1999).
Pirozhkov (2006) did a research on Ukrainian migrants traveling abroad for the purpose of earning money. He came to the conclusion that people between the age 20 and 34, who had higher education and psychological and physical health were most likely to emigrate. The majority of income earned abroad was invested back in the Ukrainian economy.
Ukrainian immigrants became a primary source of labour in the Czech Republic since 90s, when during the economy transformation there was a major development of the service and construction industries in the country (Strielkowski and Rausser 2013). The Czech citizens wished for a more Western-style affordable housing, and the availability of mortgages made the dream of a new house for many Czech citizens come true. This created a boom in the housing market that lasted until the end of 90’s. The boom in the housing market has created jobs in the construction industries that were fulfilled by the Ukrainian labour.
Ukrainians were pushed into emigration due to the economic situation in the country.
Workers in Ukraine were not paid for a long period of time and the inflation decreased their purchasing power (Wallace 2002). In the 90s, Ukrainians wages were only one-third of wages in the Czech Republic. Of course, the wages in Germany and Austria were even higher, but the situation in the Czech Republic after the split of Czechoslovakia offered plenty of opportunities for the locals and immigrants, especially in the small-scale business (Wallace 2002). The legislation could not keep up with the rapidly changing economy, which created the room for exploiting the situation and working in the country illegally was easy at that time. The majority of Ukrainians came to the
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work, and family reunification procedures were not available. So, the labour market dictated the gender composition of Ukrainian migrants (Sidorenko 1995). At the beginning of transition to the market economy, the Czech Republic began to require additional labour in the service industry and construction. This secondary labour market had a high turnout, low wages, short-term and seasonal work, conditions that were unattractive to the locals. Czech workers preferred to go to work at such seasonal jobs in Germany, where they can get paid more.
Ukrainians, who wished to settle in the Czech Republic at that time, faced difficulties, because the Czech Republic did not expect the immigrants to settle permanently. The naturalization process was quite difficult, integration efforts were non-existent (the first integration programs appeared in 2000s), and it was even hard to find Czech language courses (Wallace 2002). The Czech Republic at that time expected immigrant labour to go back to their home countries in the future.
The majority of migration to the Czech Republic was labour oriented. The Czech Republic issued the most of the work permits among countries in the Central Europe. However, besides the legal migration there were high number of irregular immigrants, who did not have a work permit or residence status that allowed employment (Wallace 2002). Applying for the work permits was troublesome, as the procedure became more and more strict after 1996, and many irregular workers also did not want to legalize their status in the Czech Republic in order to avoid paying taxes. Such immigrants were coming to the Czech Republic to earn income for a specific reason such as buying a house and go back to their families in Ukraine as soon as possible (Fedyuk 2006). Getting a work permit ideally lasted around 90 days, but in practice it was even more time consuming, so the majority of immigrant workers preferred to get a trade license or work illegally (Luptak and Drbohlav 1999). The majority of illegal workers worked in construction, agriculture, housekeeping, hospitality sectors. They usually worked for a small scale business in a private sector because small
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The majority of Ukrainian immigrants tended to occupy low-skilled jobs upon arrival (Leontiyeva 2014). Although many immigrants thought that a low-skilled job is a temporary solution until they settle down and find a more suitable job, the statistics showed that the majority of immigrants stayed in a low-skilled job permanently because with time they lost their qualifications and skills. In the Czech Republic, 58 percent of Ukrainians are employed in low skilled jobs, while only 5 percent hold managerial positions (Leontiyeva 2014). In terms of low-skilled jobs, 44 percent are employed in construction and 21 percent in manufacturing industries.
Ukrainians are often perceived as being overeducated for the job they perform in the Czech Republic. The findings from a study conducted by Leontiyeva (2014) showed that Ukrainians are mostly not overeducated for the work position they hold. 22 percent of Ukrainians are over educated for their work position, when the share of overeducated workers among different nationalities is 18 percent. The study also confirms that staying in the country for a longer period of time will not help the immigrants to decrease the gap between their education and job position. A study by Strielkowski and Rausser (2013) suggested that the Ukrainian labour migration to the Czech Republic is targeted and specialized in several sectors such as construction. They focused on construction industry in the Czech Republic and found out that immigrants ,who work in the construction sector in Ukraine, were more likely to work in the same sector in the Czech Republic, so the stereotype that the Ukrainian doctor is working at construction site in the Czech Republic is perhaps misleading. However, a situation when a university graduate worked had a low skilled job in the Czech Republic was more common in the 90s.
Those findings are also confirmed by the interviews the author conducted during her stay in
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Republic due to the economic reasons (Interviewee O) . One respondent, who worked as a nurse in Ukraine, is now working as a cleaning lady (Interviewee F) . The majority of respondents did not change their occupation during the years they stayed in the Czech Republic, only 3 women told the author they took courses in the Czech Republic to get local work qualification.
According to the research done by Luptak and Drbohlav (1999), many Czech firms did not welcome foreign labour (more on the attitudes of the Czech society on the immigration issue see in Chapter 4). The concern of the Czech firms was that local labour force could not compete with the immigrants from the East, because they were willing to work long hours, during the weekends and under unacceptable working conditions for the local labour. Furthermore, the Czech companies who employ local labour could not compete at the market, because their prices were higher than the competition. Also, the respondents pointed out that foreign labour spend their income abroad and do not invest in the Czech economy. The Czech firms were convinced that foreign workers increased the criminality and unlawful behavior, and spread infectious diseases (Luptak and Drbohlav 1999).
The other group of respondents pointed out the positive aspects of foreign labour. The Czech firms pointed out that foreign labour took positions that could not be fulfilled by the local labour force because of the current system of social welfare and because vocational schools could not attract enough students.
3.2 Ukrainians as a Diaspora
Even though the majority Ukrainians lived in poverty in the 90s, they still had faith that the economy will get better in the future and chose to stay in Ukraine (Wallace 2002). The research done by Drbohlav et al (1999), on the other hand, suggested that Ukrainians immigrants were pessimistic about the future of Ukrainian economy with only 22 percent of respondents believed that the economic situation in the country would get better in the next 5 years. Ukrainians working
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for them to go back into Ukrainian labour market because they had lost their qualifications during their stay abroad. It is not uncommon for one family member working abroad and sending money to support their spouse and children in Ukraine. This has become a social issue in Ukraine because many children were raised by only one parent or by grandparents, while parents were working abroad. This issue is deepened when parents work abroad illegally and cannot go back to their home country easily. Women are often also migrating abroad in order to earn income, but they work in different sectors such as domestic help, hospitality sector or agriculture (Wallace 2002). The majority of migrants, however, are men. Wallace (2002) suggests that men migrate more often because women have household responsibilities. The fact that women take care of the house and children enables men to become circular migrants, spending abroad a longer period of time. In Ukraine, the society expects a husband to earn income for his family and a wife migrates only if her husband is not capable of being a breadwinner for the family. Decisions to migrate to work abroad are made within family and often for the sake of family (Sidorenko 1995). If a wife migrates as well, grandparents usually take care of children (Sidorenko 1995). It is not uncommon, that grandparents become a primary caretakers, because parents can spend years abroad or not even come back to Ukraine anymore. Those children are called “social orphans” by Ukrainian scholars because officially they do not have a caretaker, their parents are abroad, and their grandparents are not registered as caretakers.
Another factor that is limiting permanent migration from Ukraine is that both the Czech Republic and Ukraine are welfare states (Wallace 2002). Such welfare states encourage immobility because citizens can receive pensions, health services, education and other benefits only if they pay
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Ukrainian pension system. They often leave their family in Ukraine because of the education and health care. Connection to the welfare system in Ukraine also encourages circular migration.
The last factor is attachment to the homeland, as well as language and cultural barrier (Wallace 2002). Even Ukrainian and Czech languages are similar, immigrants still need to make an effort to learn the language.
According to the estimates, around 80 percent of Ukrainian immigrants wish to return home, seeing migration as a temporary solution to earn income (Markov et al 2009, cited in Strielkowski and Rausser 2013). The majority of immigrants invest their earnings back to Ukraine, for example, they spend money on property, education costs of their children and support their families. The families of immigrants have a higher purchasing power than an average Ukrainian citizen, so there is a whole market targeting the temporary migrant workers and their families (Fedyuk 2006). Most of remittances are used for basic needs and food (58 percent), 30 percent is used on medicine and education (although officially Ukrainian medical service is free for all citizens, in the reality, the majority of medical supplies and medicine need to be bought by patients, and the majority of doctors expect gifts and money for their service), 17 percent of real estate investment, and the rest of money for other uses (Strielkowski et al 2012).
Most migrants valued their emigration experience positively, because it helped them to improve their economic situation, housing conditions, or helped them to gain professional experience and open own business (Pirozhkov 2006). However, Fedyk (2006) states that the money earned abroad is almost never used for opening a business in Ukraine. It is hard for a migrant to save enough money to open a business and the business in Ukraine are run by local elite and their families. It is almost impossible to open own business without connection. The immigrants who spent abroad several years often lack such connections (Fedyuk 2006). There are several obstacles to run a small-scale business in Ukraine. First of all, the government policy is focused on the major
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obstacle is corruption (Luptak and Drbohlav 1999). The level of corruption could be only compared to African countries, according to Luptak and Drbohlav (1999). Spending money on college education of children is a common goal for many migrants working abroad. Officially, the higher education is free for citizens, but in the recent years, many private universities have emerged, and
obstacle is corruption (Luptak and Drbohlav 1999). The level of corruption could be only compared to African countries, according to Luptak and Drbohlav (1999). Spending money on college education of children is a common goal for many migrants working abroad. Officially, the higher education is free for citizens, but in the recent years, many private universities have emerged, and