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Immigration became an especially thorny and publicly discussed issue with the so-called Refugee Crisis beginning in 2015. The stance of the Czech and Polish governments was dominated by strong anti-Muslim and anti-immigration rhetoric. Still, both countries have witnessed a steady increase in mainly short-term immigration from various Asian countries such as Bangladesh or Pakistan ever since. This paper analyses Czech and Polish migration policies against the backdrop of a historically constructed notion of anti-illegal immigration policy, and category of temporary migration, coupled with the problematic nature of debt-financed migration in Asia. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Czechia and Poland (2018-2021), in-depth and semi-structured interviews with migration experts, academic and grey literature, official documents, and the method of Accidental ethnography, this paper argues that silencing of actual labor immigration in political communication while employing anti-migration rhetoric represents a discursive gap typical for liberal democracies. It further concludes that rendering migrant labor as a temporary commodity and turning a blind eye on recruitment of international migrants represents a continuity practice of migrant labor subordination within the nation-state, originating during colonialism and the advent of capitalism in the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the time politics involved in applying for a residence permit in the Czech Republic, with a focus on non-European Union (EU) applicants. It examines how governmentality and state superiority are represented and performed within the bureaucratic procedure of the application process. Based on the results, I argue that the application process bureaucracy is tied to time politics – practices that govern others through time. The paper is based on research realised in Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic, and uses qualitative, ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews with immigrants from non-EU countries who applied for a long-term residence permit. The paper examines time politics within this process, highlighting its unpredictability, disrupted temporal linearity and chrononormativity. In this context, the respondents describe the waiting period as a moment of being in between – temporally, spatially and socially. Therefore, I argue that the time politics experienced throughout the application process significantly influences the lives of applicants. The interviews revealed that the applicants were caught in a liminal position with an uncertain ending, exemplified by the impossibility of moving (temporally, spatially and socially) – a feeling often described as stuckedness. Consequently, this time politics and the temporal inequality and disadvantages experienced during the process contribute to exclusion from mainstream Czech society and produce structural invisibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Russia's military aggression against Ukraine set in motion a large number of refugees. Considerable amount of them came and stayed in Czechia. Refugees represent special vulnerable individuals often affected by war physically and psychologically. Due to the national regulations not allowing most of Ukrainian men aged 18–60 to leave the country, nowadays Ukrainian forced migration is relatively young and strongly gendered. Evidence suggests the higher probability for searching the safe refuge abroad among Ukrainian women with small children as well as those with relatively higher economic and cultural capital. The aim of this study is to identify the structural features of systemic risks associated with war migration by examining determinants of self-rated health among forcibly displaced highly educated Ukrainian women of productive age residing in Czechia. Methods: Data from one wave of the panel survey among Ukrainian refugees in Czechia conducted in September 2022 was used. Determinants of self-rated health including self-reported diseases and healthcare factors, lifestyle, human and social capital, economic factors, and migration characteristics were analysed using binary logistic regression. Results: About 45% highly educated Ukrainian women refugees in Czechia assessed their health as poor. The poor self-rated health was mostly associated with the number of diseases and depressive symptoms, and by social capital and economic factors. Having four and more diseases (OR = 13.26; 95%-CI: 5.61–31.35), showing some severe depressive symptoms (OR = 7.20; 95%-CI: 3.95–13.13), experiencing difficulties to seek help from others (OR = 2.25; 95%-CI: 1.20–4.23), living alone in a household (OR = 2.67; 95%-CI: 1.37–5.27), having severe material deprivation (OR = 2.70; 95%-CI: 1.35–5.41) and coming originally from the eastern part of Ukraine (OR = 2.96; 95%-CI: 1.34–6.55) increased the chance of these refugees to assess their health as poor. Conclusion: Social and economic determinants such as lack of social contacts for seeking help and material deprivation were found to be crucial for self-rated health and should be tackled via migration policies. Further, qualitative research is needed to better understand the mechanisms behind the factors affecting subjectively assessed health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of demographic changes in the Czech Republic as a result of population ageing and international migration. To do so, it develops a unique dynamic Overlapping Generations Computable General Equilibrium (OLG–CGE) model with detailed representation of individuals of different ages, educational attainment and occupations, as well as interrelations among industrial sectors in producing intermediate and final outputs. The numerical simulations show that the Czech economy will face a substantial reduction in its effective labour supply and changes in aggregate as well as sectoral demand patterns, leading to lower economic growth (4.4% lower GDP by 2050 in absence of technological progress), increase in unit labour costs (5.2% higher wages in absence of inflation) and lower competitiveness of the economy as a whole. Replacement migration may alleviate the pressure, yet the current gross immigration would need to increase by at least 8-17 thousand individuals per year compared to the UN projections (a 15–34% increase) without changing emigration patterns in order to offset the adverse long-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slovakia has experienced a six-year period of decreased labour market efficiency during a post-crisis period and growing emigration flows before and after a post-crisis period. There is also the concurrent issue of the lack of sufficient business activities in the southern, northern and eastern regions, and the economic development of some of the Slovak regions lacks diversification. We have analysed labour market conditions and emigration trends in Slovakia and EU neighbouring countries. The analysis of emigration trends has shown that among EU neighbouring countries, the Slovak migrant population tends to migrate mostly to the Czech Republic. We conducted regression analysis with the use of the ordinary least squares method to identify the main drivers affecting emigration from Slovakia to the Czech Republic as the primary destination country for Slovak migrants. The analysis has revealed that unemployment rates in both countries, labour market regulation which was introduced in the Czech Republic as well as EU enlargement in 2004 are the most significant triggers for emigration in Slovakia. Based on the results obtained, we have discussed possible ways to stimulate economic growth and prevent future emigration from Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]