Migrant Diversity, Migration Motivations and Early Integration: The Case of Poles in Germany, the Netherlands, London and Dublin

Abstract

The expansion of the European Union eastwards in 2004, with an ensuing massive increase in East-West migration from the accession countries has been represented as a new migration system of a kind unique in recent migration history. As such, it provides an ideal context in which to develop understandings of 'new mobilities'. In this paper we utilise a unique, four- country data source covering over 3,500 migrants to characterise the new migration, focusing on Poles migrating to Germany, the Netherlands, London and Dublin in 2009-2011. We conduct a three-stage analysis that first employs latent class analysis to allocate the migrants to six migrant types. We then link these migrant types to pre-migration characteristics and estimate multinomial logit models for class membership. Third, controlling for these pre-migration characteristics we explore how the migrant types are associated with subjective and objective measures of wellbeing and receiving society integration.