Migration, Return and Development – How Do They Match Together?

2015–2016

ERSTE Foundation Fellowship for Social Research Diasporas, nation states and mainstream societies in Central and Eastern Europe

Migration, Return and Development – How Do They Match Together?

Reflections from a small Developing Town in Romania Remus Gabriel Anghel

Migration, Return and Development – How Do They Match Together?

Reflections from a small Developing Town in Romania1 Remus Gabriel Anghel2

Key words: migration and development, globalization, return migration

Abstract Return migration has gained increasing attention in the past years. Confronted with prolonged economic crisis in countries from the Western Europe and increasing politicization of migration, return migration may become a more sustained practice. For the localities and countries of origin, return migration may become, or is hoped to become a driver for economic, social and political development. Policy makers, national authorities and international organizations were hopeful for such development prospects due to the fact that returnees accumulated social, economic and cultural resources in more developed countries.

In this paper I aim to investigate the ways in which migration and return migration produced economic changes in a locality with intense out-migration. Different from a large number of studies describing the migration-induced changes and the diffusion of social and economic remittances as leveled processes encompassing entire communities and regions of origin, I look into the ways in which migration and return affects different social

1 This research project was developed within the ERSTE Foundation Fellowship for Social Research 2015/2016.

2 Remus Gabriel Anghel is senior researcher at the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities, Cluj, Romania, and recurrent visiting professor at the Faculty for Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences of the Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania.

Email: remusgabriel@yahoo.com. The research team included Ovidiu Oltean, PhD student at the Babeș Bolyai University in Cluj, Alina Silian, PhD student at the Central European University Budapest, and myself.

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groups. For this aim, I distinguish between the effects produced by different migration temporalities and return.

I contextualize the research in a small city in Romania that received a very large level of foreign investments, a context in profound social and economic transformation, with increasing social differentiation emerging after the collapse of state socialism. I argue that the literature on migration and development shall consider migration careers and local stratification in analyzing the effects of migration and remittances on sending societies.

Introduction Return migration has gained increasing attention in the past years. Confronted with prolonged economic crisis in countries from the Western Europe and increasing politicization of migration in the past years, return migration may become a more sustained practice among the migrants living in Europe. For the localities and countries of origin, return migration may become, or at least is hoped to become a driver for economic, social and political development. The paper analyzes the ways in which migration and return migration produced social and economic changes in areas and countries of origin, relying on fieldwork conducted in a small industrialized town in central Romania. I rely on the vibrant and vast literature on migration and development looking at the specific type of changes that migration produce worldwide. While this body of literature paid extensive attention on remittances and their effects on development, the focus of this paper is rather on return migration and its specific effects on entrepreneurship and development. Besides, the processes I analyze are produced in a massively changing society. They occurred in two very important yet very distinct periods of time – one of accelerated decay between 1990 and 2000, and the second of rapid growth, after 2000. In the first part of the paper I will discuss how migration emerged locally as a way to overcome economic difficulties, and how later it changed again in the context of economic recovery and Romania’s accession to the EU. In the second part I focus on the patterns of return migration and how a newly-formed social strata of returnees emerged. What was becoming apparent in this research and will be the focus 2

of this paper case is the wide difference emerging between different categories of migrants and returnees in relation to their previous socio-economic background and migrant careers.

Framing the research In the past years return migration has received increasing attention in the scholarship of migration (de Haas et al 2015: 416, Black and King 2004). “Return migration describes a situation where migrants return to their country of origin … often after a significant period” (Dustmann and Weiss 2007: 238). Initially return migration was conceived of as the permanent resettlement of migrants in societies of origin (Gmelch 1980). This initial understanding conceived return as the end phase of migration process, thus limiting the phenomenon to only a limited number of cases. With the wide recognition of migrant’ transnationalism as a main feature of today’s migrant communities, one may acknowledge the limited use of this concept of return. After all, “transnational movement itself [could be] conceived as a form of return” (Sinatti 2011: 153, Black and King 2004): migrants’ back and forth movements involve return, and it is difficult sometimes to distinguish between short visits, temporary or seasonal return in the case of migrant transnationalism (Sinatti 2011:154). In other cases return is just another stage in a continuous migratory project (Cessarino 2004), “as in a transnational field, there is no finality to movement” (Ley and Kobayasi 2005: 118). Accordingly, one may better conceive return as a widely diversified phenomenon encompassing different forms of return: permanent, occasional, seasonal, or temporary (King 2000), double return or reemigration (White 2014). Return migration may involve labor migrants and highly-skilled, men and women, temporary or longer-term migrants. It may be voluntary, or forced (Kushminder and Butcher 2012). As a highly diverse and dynamic phenomenon, return migration may be driven by various motivations, from economic and professional motivations to social motivations related to family (King 2000), charity (Conway et al 2012), conservative or nationalist reasons (Cerase 1974, Vlase 2013).

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In the past years research has been devoted to unfold the role of returnees for the economic development of origin countries (Black et al.:416) in the context of the wide debates on migration, development, and remittances. “The return and development optimism” (Åkesson 2016) supported the idea that the migrants will transfer to the countries of origin accumulated skills, financial and social resources, thus enhancing their role on development. This was analyzed in the case of Bangladeshi returned migrants from Japan who are able to capitalize on their managerial experiences gained in Japan (Higuchi and Nakano 2011), or with Filipino returnees from Malaysia being involved in palm tree industry in Philippines (Montefrio et al. 2104). Such a transformative understanding of migration and return was embraced by the scholarship on social remittances (Levitt 1998, Boccagni and Decimo 2013). Many scholars argue that migrants not only remit money, but often – and more importantly – ideas, values, and social capital.

In addition, these social remittances diffuse in wider regions and have a transformative character (Levitt 1998). Some other scholars accentuate also the idea of circulation – the sustained flows of social, financial and cultural capital between countries (Sinatti 2011:153) is an essential means to promote and sustain social and economic changes in sending countries (Grillo and Riccio 2004, Black and King 2004).

On the other hand, critical perspectives often suggest a rather limited impact of return migration on the development of sending countries. As some authors contend, most returnees were employed in low-skilled jobs in reception countries (Akesson 2012) and their skills are actually not valuable assets for their sending societies. Very often also, when living too much in reception countries, returnees have unrealistic expectations towards sending countries (King 2000). Migrants with too short periods of migration, on the other hand, are not able to accumulate sufficient financial and social resources to use them strategically upon return. Secondly, not only returnees’ characteristics and level of resource accumulation impede them becoming successful ‘at home’. As it is stressed in structuralist approaches, returnees have difficulties to readapt to sending societies (Hunter 2011) due to the fact that local institutional and social factors largely influence their social adaptation and economic initiatives (Cessarino 2004: 261). In order to weigh on how the returnees fare upon return I will distinguish between different types of returnees’ careers, taking into consideration the use of social and financial remittances, 4

length of stay abroad, and use of transnational and local social resources (social ties and networks) for running their activities. For this, I distinguish between long-term and shortterm migrant careers. I unfold how different migrants use their migratory experiences and their financial remittances. Given these differences, I better account for how different migrant careers influence local development processes.

Why Sebeș? Conducting research in a globalizing place Literature on migration and development widely discussed the role that migration may play for the development of origin countries. After the migration and development enthusiasm at the beginning of 2000s, when the high levels of remittances worldwide fueled hopes for sustained growth in the developing world, more pessimistic views gained currency. They witnessed that in spite of the huge wave of remittances worldwide there are still inconclusive results of migration on development, and that in many cases, as curious as it may be, migration and migrant remittances accentuate dependency and underdevelopment (Portes 2009). In this sense, de Haas (2006) argues that a more fruitful approach would be to not single out migration as a factor conducive to development, but to consider migration as one potential developing factors among others.

Following this call, Sebeș is a good case at hand: the city is in a process of quick development and experienced high level of international migration. Therefore, I will here ask what effects had migration and return on the locality and how it influenced its development?

Sebeș is a small town of 28,000 people situated at the crossroad of two principal auto routes in Romania: the highway from the Western border to the south, and the European road between Bucharest and Cluj, the largest Romanian cities. The town is also located 15 km away from Alba Iulia, a neighboring city of 70,000, which is the municipal center of the county, and 55 km from Sibiu, a city of 170,000 and one of Romania’s important economic centers. Despite the small scale of the city and the existence of more attractive neighboring cities – Alba Iulia and Sibiu – Sebeş has become in the past ten years an “El

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Dorado” of foreign investments in Romania. It is a place of flourishing economic activity, low unemployment, a city with one of the most important FDI per capita in the country.

However, in spite of this favorable situation of today, it had a more turbulent trajectory after 1989. During state socialism, the city was pretty-developed for the Romanian context: it hosted four large factories in leather, textiles, paper, and wood. Sebeş had also a pretty developed system of semi-private enterprises - handicraft cooperatives - state owned firms that allowed their employees to sell their products on the market. Job opportunities in the region abounded, as there were jobs in agriculture and in a big industrial center in the neighborhood, in the small city of Cugir, 30 km away. In the first years after socialism the place experienced a dramatic decay in jobs and living standards: the textile and leather factory, employing each a few thousand people from the city and its hinterland, were forced to fire a large part of its employers. Such a situation was general in Romania at that time as the industrial sector shrunk dramatically and employees were massively fired (Allison and Ringold 1996). Over the years, however, a series of companies developed over time in Sebeș; the city received large investment in wood industry, textile, furniture and leather. In addition, in the past years DaimlerMercedes opened up a factory.

This local success was possible due to the existence of the highway and a series of local factors that influenced this investment enthusiasm. Towards the end of the 1990s, the local large wood factory was privatized with Pakistani entrepreneurs that resold it later to an Italian multinational company, Gruppo Frati. At that time, the Italian company invested about 200 million USD in new technology and became one of the largest wood processers in the country, taking advantage of the large forests nearby. In 2004, Gruppo Frati further sold their local asset to Kronospan, an Austrian-based company. In 2003, a year before, another Austrian company, Holzindustrie Schweighofer, made another large investment in the city, erecting a timber factory. Due to these two very large investments, another Italian company, Savini Due, specialized in bathroom appliances and furniture, built a furniture and appliances factory. Finally, in 2013 Daimler opened a plant for semiautomatic and automatic gearboxes. Medium-size textile and leather factories developed on the remnants of the former communist industry. Some Italian and Romanian investors 6

opened up a few labor-intensive plants, usually relying on intensive labor and low salaries.

A different type of economic activity was conducted by local people from Sebeş. They developed small and medium-size enterprises in various fields such as ice cream production, tiles production, internet commerce, commerce, transportation and food production. This uneven development, with a period of decay and poverty followed by recovery and sustained growth, profoundly impacted people’s lives. In respect to migration, if people migrated very much until mid-2000s, this flow stopped and started to reverse afterwards, with some of the former migrants returning.

Given this particular development, of large-scale migration and economic advancement, I here asked how returnees adapted to the sending context. At the first sight it was apparent that the strong economic decay and later development affected different groups in pretty uneven ways. Most of the local ethnic Germans have left the country early in the 1990s when the decay experienced in the 1990s had not yet taken place. This first impact of globalization, when the local socialist industry had to restructure, change ownership and adapt to national and global markets, impacted on the population massively.

Romanians started to migrate towards Spain, and the Roma lost their jobs and remained utterly segregated. When economic growth happened after 2005-2006, it affected mostly Romanians who started to work in the newly-opened factories, some of the Roma, and the few Germans that remained in the country. The majority of the Roma, however, remained unemployed. Yet, they also started to migrate after 2007, when the country entered the EU. During the empirical research we have tried first to distinguish the types of social changes undergoing locally and how migration proceeded in this globalized context. The research fieldwork lasted for many months in the past years, mostly in 2015. We asked: “What were the effects of the large wave of investment?” “How did this impacted on peoples’ lives?” “Why and how migration emerged from this place?” and finally, “What sort of changes did migration produce locally, especially economic ones?” Due to the types of situations and processes we encountered, we approached the fieldwork sequentially: we first dealt with the migration and social change among the ethnic German community in 2013. In 2014 and 2015 we analyzed the migration among the Roma, while in the autumn 7

of 2015 the migration, return and entrepreneurship of Romanians. In each case we used a theoretical (or purposive) sample (Emmel 2013) using snow-ball method in order to obtain new contacts and following new topics as they emerged in interviews. The existence of key informants greatly helped our endeavors as they facilitated contacts and provided valuable information. Interviews focused on migration experiences, challenges and opportunities of migration, and the types of skills that people acquired. In the second part interviews focused on return experiences, when we have tried to classify return cases as “successes” and “failures”, looking at how or if returnees were able to readapt successfully and innovatively to the local labor market. Altogether we gathered about 140 interviews with migrants, family members and businessmen. Discussions with nonmigrants and participant observation greatly improved the understanding of the local social context as we were able to triangulate the data from different sources. In the following the paper describes the different migratory patterns and return in the city and their (primarily economic) effects.

International Migration in a Changing Town Migration from Sebeș developed as a temporary distinct process. I distinguish two main patterns of migration: long-term (often permanent) migration, and short-term (or temporary) migration that involved people from all three ethnic groups: Romanians, Roma and Germans. Migrants were both skilled and unskilled. Brain drain existed in Sebeș both internally and internationally, however due to the fact that we noticed no return of brain drain, I will not deal with these migrants in this paper. Long term migration had two different forms: the ethnic migration of Germans to Germany and the labor migration of Romanians going mostly towards Spain. Long term migration involved both skilled migrants and brain drain. In many cases, such as most of ethnic Germans and most of highly-skilled migrants, they had no plans to return. In many other cases, such as Romanian labor migrants, migration was conceived of as a temporary move that prolonged over the years. Skilled temporary migration consists of Romanians and some Roma who sustained short-term migration projects to different European countries, while unskilled temporary migrants involved mostly Roma from the segregated ghetto at the 8

outskirts of the city. Having adopted this typology, I aim to unfold the role of migration for these groups of people and how in the end, it impacted on the locality. I suggest that substantial differences exist between these broad categories, and that the ways in which the migration experience was internalized and enhanced peoples’ agency was related to the period of time spent abroad and migrants’ careers.

Long-term migration was developing early in the 1990s and early 2000s. The first group of people who started to migrate were the ethnic Germans. They made about eight percent of the population. Ethnic Germans migrated to Germany and their initial intention was to relocate to Germany. This migration occurred as a state-led process during the state socialism, when ethnic Germans had to officially apply for permanent migration.

After 1990, when the Romanian state lifted the travel restrictions, this migration was sudden and until 1992-1993, most ethnic Germans migrated to Germany. In these cases, relations to Sebeş were random. Out of this flow of actually permanent migrants, a few decided to return to Sebeș and became small to middle-range entrepreneurs. Besides Germans, there were also some Romanians who migrated in the same period of time as permanent migrants.

A second pattern of long-term migration evolved later in the context of the strong crisis that stroke the city in the middle of the 1990s. Due to the closing down of factories and shrinking labor market, people lost their jobs and had to find go elsewhere. This migration developed after 1995-1997. It involved mostly Romanians and it required financial and social resources that migrants could capitalize on. There were also cases of Roma migrants in the 1990s, however they triggered no chain migration of friends or relatives.

After 2000, labor migration took on building on the expansion of migrant networks and fueled by the large labor demand in Spain. Due to Romania citizens’ visa-free access to the EU countries, migration to Spain and other EU countries grew tremendously, in a short period of time absorbing a large pool of migrants from Sebeș and the surrounding villages. Initially, labor migrants to Spain had the intention to return in a few years’ time but they prolonged their stay abroad indefinitely, especially when they were accompanied by families. This migration developed roughly between 2000 and 2005-2006 as a large chain migration. Most of these migrants were involved in the (at that time) booming real 9

estate sector in Spain, while women worked in caring. Some others took jobs in hospitality or industry. The patterns of international migration of Romanians were more diverse, though. Some other labor migrants moved to Italy taking up jobs in hospitality. The brain drain of Romanians oriented towards other destinations such as the UK, Germany or France. Well educated youngsters migrated also to larger Transylvanian cities such as Sibiu and Cluj. When the local labor market started to offer better jobs, labor migration became less appealing as before. After 2008, when the Spanish economy entered the crisis, this pattern of long-term labor migration almost ceased. Some other destinations of long-term labor migration were also targeted after 2008, such as Germany and the UK. However, migration towards these new destinations is less intense, and the use of social networks was more limited than it was in the case of migration to Spain.

Temporary migration developed throughout the 2000s and 2010s. In some cases it transformed into long-term migration, but after 2009-2010, when countries from the southern Europe entered crisis, temporary labor migration significantly decreased.

People from Sebeş could find jobs locally and migration abroad became much less important than before. Between a job at the Mercedes factory in Sebeş and a temporary construction work abroad, many people could find local employment more attractive, not just because of good salaries, but mostly because of constancy and job security.

Temporary migration after that period of time was primarily practiced by the Roma, who were largely unemployed. They started to move towards Western Europe much later than Romanians and did not encounter the same propitious labor market conditions as did Romanians when they migrated to Spain or Italy. Besides, the migration of Roma from Sebeș is not only diversified in terms of occupation and migratory pattern, but also in its geographical orientation. If Germans and Romanians targeted some main countries, primarily Germany and Spain, Roma migrated towards multiple destinations. This migration resembles migration of pioneers, when migration practices and strategies are not structured and migrant networks are less used (Massey 1987, Massey et al 1994).

From Sebeș some migrated temporarily to work, to beg, or to perform street activities, such as singing. Doru works in a leather factory as specialized worker. He works in that factory for about ten years, however he is rewarded with the minimal Romanian salary, 10

which is about 170 Euro/month. As he is also amateur musician and started to go to Spain during summers performing in the public in Spanish touristic areas. Dan also went once to France to one of his relatives. He was promised employment, however this promise did not materialize. His relative asked him to leave soon after arrival. Dan was a Pentecostal believer and by going to the Pentecostal Church he was able to find some support as the French priest asked Dan to help him with household works. In another case, Cătălin’s father started to work for a Spanish restaurant owner in 2004. He gained the trust of his employer and was able to secure a position as barkeeper in Madrid. In spite of the current economic crisis, he remained there, but Cătălin returned. Dorin also went to Spain and worked for a sandwich-producing company. He distributed sandwiches all around Madrid and held two sandwiches kiosks in the center. Together with his wife they worked for that company and received a very well salary. With their savings they were able to construct a house in Romania close to the ghetto, but in the “Romanians’ area” outside of it. He also bought a house in Spain relying on his monthly payments.

When the crisis hit Spain, the company bankrupted and he was no longer able to pay the mortgage. In the end he had to return to Romania and took a job in Sebeș. Similarly, other people went to Greece and Germany but returned afterwards. In their migration, these temporary migrants did not use their social networks to migrate and obtain employment.

They often considered that people in the ghetto were not helping each other, that relying on the local ties was actually not a good strategy. Still, a minority of them were able to settle in Italy, Germany, France and Spain. Some claimed social benefits and were assisted by labor market institutions in finding jobs. Others found jobs by themselves.

Laura went with her husband and daughter to the northern part of Germany working in an ethnic restaurant. Her husband works in the hospitality industry travelling with carousels all around Germany. They considered they were well integrated, having friends among colleagues and neighbors. In these cases, such as Laura’s, they expressed no wish to return.

Migration, Return and Local Development

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These differentiated long-term and temporary migration and the return corresponding to these patterns had important, however distinct influences on Sebeş. In the following I discuss the impacts generated by these migrations and conclude with some considerations concerning the relationship between return migration and development in this Romanian case. I ask what effects migration and return migration engender in the cases presented above, and how do migrants and returnees use the accumulated financial and social remittances upon return? What is their capacity to innovate and transfer social and financial remittances back home?

The migration of about 4,000 ethnic Germans from the city and neighboring villages was meant to be a permanent migration without return. Indeed, migrants from this wave did not send their remittances back, did not visit regularly Sebeş and in general terms, cut their ties to the place of origin. Their migration was supported by the German state, and they migrated together with their relatives: family members, including the parents. Others remained in Sebeş and did not move at all. The current German ethnic community of Sebeş comprises about 400 persons, mostly people with mixed ethnic background. In general they do not maintain relations with the members of the emigrant community. In spite of this general trend of permanent migration, some links between migrants and those at home proved important. At the beginning of the 1990s, a German investor opened up a textile factory in Petrești, now a quarter of Sebeș. The investment was facilitated by some ethnic German emigrants who also recommended as manager one German that remained in Romania. A second investment facilitated by emigrants abroad was with a hemp plantation and a plant. The investment was first initiated by a German investor who reached Sebeș due to his contacts with some ethnic Germans from Sebeș.

The whole business was later acquired by a Dutch company.

Besides these, a few ethnic Germans did return to Sebeş opening up small businesses.

These few returnees ventured into small-scale businesses. Horst, a carpenter, returned after a few years in Germany. Back home he opened a company offering his services in the city and the neighboring region. As he contended, he had a number of customers in Germany and was doing very well. For personal reasons, however, he decided to return.

He considers he had no real competition in Romania once coming from Germany with 12

technology and higher level of professionalism. Similar to this case, Martin and Richard opened up companies in hospitality industry. Martin opened a restaurant on the national road, offering also guiding services for tourists arriving from Germany, while Richard opened up a touristic guesthouse around Sibiu, fifty kilometers away. In all these cases, returnees invested their savings in these businesses in Romania, investments that proved successful. In the last two cases, the returnees’ knowledge of German was also important, as they could offer services to German tourists visiting Transylvania. In another case, a returnee opened a company in trade, importing second-hand furniture from Germany. In all these cases, migrants benefitted from remittances that they invested, knowledge of German, and knowledge of the German market. Besides, the social remittances accumulated in Germany (professional and managerial skills) and the adaptation to the Romanian market were essential. On the other hand, though, the number of German returnees was very small in comparison to the overall German migration. Given that in most cases migrants ceased their relations to Romania and that the returnees’ social remittances did not diffuse further and remained linked to their activities, the influence of the migration remained confined to a small group of people.

The long-term migration of Romanians influenced the city in pretty different ways. As labor migrants in the 2000s, migrants sent high levels of remittances. Thus, this money was essential for people in a city in economic decay. They were not invested in constructing big houses as it happened in other parts of Romania (Toth and Toth 2006) but mostly in sustaining the migrants’ household consumption. A large portion was also saved.

Supporting the local consumption market at the beginning of 2000s, migration also helped the survival of other small companies in Sebeș in commerce, services and small-scale production. Secondly, returnees coming back from Spain invested in transportation, constructions, and meat production. Such businesses in transportation and meat production in most cases addressed both local customers, and customers in Spain. Some other migrants who returned from Greece and the UK delved into the hospitality industry.

In the past five years they opened pubs and restaurants, thus improving the quality of restaurants and of hospitality services in Sebeș. In some of these cases, migrants had worked in the same domain while others who had different types of jobs before, seized the chances offered by the local consumption market in Romania and changed the line 13

of business. In all of these cases, returnees benefitted from the accumulated remittances, and the expanding consumption market in SebeČ™. Finally, another pattern of return of long-term migrants is made by returnees who started taking jobs in the city and the surrounding area. In these cases there were migrants who were forced to return by the strong crisis in Spain. If in the previous cases migrants reported they benefitted from migration in acquiring professional experience, the later rather expressed willingness to committed work. They had previously worked in construction and their new jobs were usually in other domains. The abundance of jobs in the city due to the foreign investments, as well as the expanding local businesses, were conceived as an important factor for this return. The return of long-term Romanian migrants was also limited given the large number of people who left the city. Similarly to the case of Germans, Romanian returnees often preferred to become entrepreneurs, however some took on jobs locally.

Temporary migration was mostly practiced by the Roma and had a massive impact on the ghetto. The Roma quarter, today home to about 4,000 people, offers incredible poor conditions, with no proper sanitation and living facilities. Most of the people are involved in marginal activities: gathering scrapped iron and plastic bottles, working temporarily in construction and agriculture, working as street cleaners for the local municipality, begging, and doing small works for others. Some were able to obtain employment in local textile and leather factories owned by Italians and Romanians. Examples of exploitation abound, as well as underpayment. People complained about prevailing discrimination, that they cannot obtain jobs due to stereotypes and negative attitudes of the Romanian majority towards them. For the ghetto, temporary migration brought about a major economic change. Upon return, many were able to invest in building new houses and improving their living conditions. Others were supplementing their family budgets after many years of stark deprivation. Migration meant not only access to more resources.

Many migrants felt they received in the Western Europe a completely different treatment than in Romania. Some migrants who practiced begging said they were treated well, like any normal human being, in spite of their humble condition. Others who used social benefits and used public institutions in Germany or France stressed they were well received and humanly treated, and they were not discriminated against. In some cases I encountered, migrants who were able to secure stable jobs considered that once being 14Â Â

employed, they were well integrated and much better treated than in Sebeș. In the city there were also some Romanians who migrated temporary, however their number is small and this pattern of migration decreased in the context of the expanding labor market.

These three migration patterns impacted Sebeș differently. The permanent migration of ethnic Germans meant almost no remittances. This migration however facilitated some German investments and there were a few local Germans who returned and became small entrepreneurs. Romanians migrated as long-term migrants and sometimes as temporary migrants. Temporary migrants were able to supplement their family budgets and maintained their residence in Romania, while long-term migrants tended to remain abroad. In the context of the crisis in the southern Europe, a part of these long-term migrants started to return, opening some small companies and taking jobs on the local market. In some of these cases, returnees used their local connections in order to obtain better jobs than what was usually offered. Some of the returnees developed their own companies. Usually, these migrants’ remittances were used for consumption and sometimes for improving their living conditions. Those who opened up companies used their remittances in order to finance their businesses. The Roma migrated later as temporary migrants, most of them returning. Some were able to settle abroad. They usually invested their remittances in improving their living standards, paying the debts, and constructing new houses. These small but new were very visible and differed substantially from the other houses from the ghetto.

Migration experience also brought different types of social remittances. In the case of German returnees, accumulated skills and market knowledge were considered important achievements. Romanian returnees who opened up new companies also consider they accumulated skills and new business ideas. Those involved in transportation and food industry kept their connections to Romanian communities abroad, for which they offered their services and goods. For the returnees who obtained jobs on the Romanian market, migration brought about some more resources, a better social standing, and a commitment for their jobs. For the temporary Roma, migration brought about an experience of non-discrimination and much more resources that they could obtain in Romania. As well, some of them started to value children’s education.

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Conclusions In the past years much research addressed the role of remittances on development.

Debates on the economic effects of remittances revolve very much around the use of remittances, namely if remittances are used as consumption or investment. One view asserts that remittances have a positive role on development, by increasing the investment in the human and physical capital (Anghel, Piracha and Randazzo 2015). A more skeptical view accentuates behavioral changes, in which cases remittances are spent on consumption rather than on investments (de Haas 2010). SebeČ™ supports a more optimistic view: here remittances were used by long-term migrants for their entrepreneurial activities and by temporary migrants for fulfilling their household needs.

The Roma who migrated temporary invested in houses and thus, improved their living conditions. Given the stark deprivation in the ghetto, the reduction of poverty coupled with valuation of education and increasing aspirations, may set the ground for a betterment of their economic standing.

In terms of social remittances, this case offers a more nuanced understanding. Social remittances were indeed brought back by returnees. But it differed in relation to the migration career and the social groups that people belonged to. Long-term migrants who returned and became local entrepreneurs declared they benefitted from migration and used what they acquired abroad. This was especially the case of those who maintained the line of business they had as migrants. For some of them, who returned and started taking jobs, they showed commitment to their jobs. Temporary migrants who returned, here the Roma, declared a non-discriminatory attitude showed to them while they were abroad. The effects and diffusion of these remittances though, remained rather limited and do not sustain a transformative vision as shared by some scholars (Levitt 2011) The role of migration and returnees on development may be also analyzed given the role and number of those involved. From among the first category, of longer-term migrants, only some have actually returned. Their role is significant in the city, as they became successful entrepreneurs. They tended to develop their businesses by participating to the 16Â Â

diversification of the growing consumers’ market. However, they only represent a small fraction of two large migratory flows, so that the city and the area experienced a significant population loss. The Roma temporary migration, in contrast, does not produce a massive population loss, as people tended to return. However, in Sebeș they are still unemployed.

Migration success and period of stay abroad were important factors explaining the position of returnees back home including the Roma. Entrepreneurs were among those with longer migration experiences and more successful. They were able to accumulate more financial resources and professional experience but returned due to the current economic crisis or due to personal reasons. Upon return they were able to capitalize on these acquisitions. Migrants with shorter stays were not able to delve into such entrepreneurial activities. In many cases they were unemployed upon return, and some of them had to take back or keep their jobs. In this respects, Roma were more disadvantaged as they have migrated later. However, in comparison to non-migrants, the migration of Roma meant a betterment of their financial situation.

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