Revista Română de Sociologie (Feb 2012)
Romania as a Country of Origin, of Transit and of Destination for Migrants
Abstract
Human migration, a phenomenon as old as time, has always emerged when there was a well-founded motivation for leaving. It affects all countries in the world, therefore Romania as well. Each of the three situations listed above has its own features and, in order to present them, we used the descriptive method, each of them generating other challenges for national safety. Migration has positive as well as negative effects, both with respect to the change of mentalities, and socially speaking in the country of origin and in the country of destination. We noticed that the nature and extent of the effects of migration depend on the profile of the migrants, on the way they build their life in the country of destination, on the contacts they preserve with their ‘roots' through the transfer of funds, knowledge and ideas. The investigative method used was mainly the comparative one. The data obtained as a result of own surveys were afterwards confirmed by the study of an ample material published by Romanian researchers in the field. The aim of presenting the three situations Romania finds itself in from the perspective of the migration phenomenon was to make them known, with implications at different levels, as this is the only way that the resolution of migration issues may become a possible and necessary objective of relevant policies. The conclusion to be drawn is that international migration, even if it is well managed, cannot substitute a national strategy for human development. Emigration has little chance of shaping the outlook of the development of an entire nation. At best, migration is an option complementing certain local efforts and larger national efforts to reduce poverty and improve human development.
