Turning points in migrants' labour market integration in Europe and benefit spillovers for Romania and Serbia: the role of socio-psychological credentials

Abstract

In this article we develop a two-fold analysis which captures the economic and socio-psychological coordinates in migrants' labour market integration into ten EU countries (EU-10), mostly targeted by immigrants (namely: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Italy and Spain). The focus is on revealing the importance of socio-psychological credentials for an active labour market participation of immigrants, aiming to extrapolate factors (timespan 2000-2019), which can foster or complicate similar process in the future. Beside total immigration flows, we particularly entail the benefit spillovers for Serbia and Romania in their migration challenges towards EU-10. A set of methods and macro-econometric models, based on spatial analysis, cross-sectional analysis and structural equations modelling, was applied on the balanced panel formed by EU-10. The results highlight that an increased participation in society, community and improved living standards satisfaction (subjective wellbeing) positively reverberate on migrant integration into host economies since it tends to upsize the employment rate of the foreign population. The opposite, a negative impact is induced by social exclusion and reduced job security, while material deprivation also significantly diminishes the employment opportunities of foreign population and their active labour market integration.