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Although there has been increasing focus on the employment mobility associated with migration and return, a number of important research gaps can be identified. First, there has been greater focus on occupational mobility than on changes in economic activity, although it is their interaction which determines welfare outcomes. Moreover, most studies of economic activity have focused on either self-employment, or the simple dichotomy between being employed versus unemployed, neglecting the shifts between full-time, part-time, and casual employment. Secondly, research on the determinants of these different types of employment mobility has been relatively narrowly focused on individual economic factors. Most studies have been fragmented, especially lacking a comparative element. To address these gaps, descriptive statistics and Bayesian multilevel models are applied to a pan-European panel survey of 3851 young returned migrants. The findings disclose that positive shifts in employment mobility are more evident in economic activity than in occupations, and for those with a lower occupational status prior to migration. Although a range of significant determinants of employment mobility are identified, the findings also demonstrate that education is a major driver of occupational mobility, while marital and family status are important influences on economic activity shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the remarkable growth of Vietnamese market trading in Central and Eastern Europe, notably Slovakia, in the early 1990s, and its subsequent decline. The literature on ethnic entrepreneurship and cross-border petty trading provides partial insights into this phenomenon, but fails to explain the levels of concentration of the Vietnamese in market trading, or the rapid changes in the sector. This article therefore conceptualizes them as being at the nexus of shifting flows of capital, goods and people, and draw on the notion of transnational spaces.

Existing high levels of temporary migration between Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union (EU) have highlighted a number of concerns relating to the eastern enlargement of the Union. While much of the debate has focused on the destinations, we use Slovakia as a case study to explore economic implications for the countries of origin of highly skilled migrants. First, the paper examines estimates of the scale of“youth brain migration”, comparing survey-based and expert-opinion estimates with our own estimate based on reconciling labour market and educational data. This identifies a substantial loss of graduate workers from the labour force through migration, accounting for a potentially significant proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. Second, we consider whether such migration will constitute“brain drain/overflow” or“brain circulation”: in other words will it be temporary or permanent? In some ways, however, this is a false dichotomy, for there are strong links between initial temporary migration and intended permanent migration, explored here through a survey of the motivations and social networks of returned migrants. Third, we address the ability of national states to intervene to mediate such losses. We generally concur with other commentators on the need for a multi-scalar and multi-functional approach, focusing especially on economic development. However, we are pessimistic about the likely speed of economic convergence and, moreover, argue that initial temporary migration (with implications for permanent migration) will continue to be driven by non-economic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic geographers have tended to neglect human mobility, and yet international labour migration constitutes significant flows that shape and are shaped by institutionally specific economic spaces. Three underlying themes run through the paper. First, the role of social networks in mediating relationships between flows and spaces. Second, the recomposition of the spatiality and temporality of flows in response to Europeanization and globalization, evident especially in the emergence of increased but differentiated skilled labour mobility. And, third, the locking into space - however temporarily - of inherently 'sticky' flows of labour mobility. These themes are investigated through an exploration of how the human capital, knowledge and financial capital embedded in migrants are created and articulated by migrants' local and trans-local relationships in their spaces of origin and destination. Finally, the paper reflects on some of the ways in which the intersection of migration flows and spaces mediate patterns of uneven regional development in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed enlargement of the European Union has focused attention on the implications for both those who do and those who do not become members in the 'first wave'. While discussions have largely centred on labour migration there are complex forms of mobility across different boundaries. This is illustrated through a case study of trans-border mobility between Slovakia and neighbouring countries in the EU, Central Eastern Europe, and the CIS. The paper stresses the complex geography of mobility, which is determined by the porosity of borders, the institutional context and regional economic complementarities. It also explores both the changing forms of labour migration and of shopping and petty-trading mobility. While highlighting the significance of EU enlargement for these deeply embedded patterns of mobility, it also emphasises the need to consider some of the broader influences such as international capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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It is now widely accepted, and commented on, that both within Europe and beyond, not only are millions on the move, but there have been fundamental changes in the very nature of migration and mobility. The large-scale uprooting of people leading to forced migration, the rapid increase of legal and illegal migration of skilled and unskilled people to the growth poles of the global economy, the rapid increase in temporary mobility of both manual labour and service providers, and the growing significance of consumption-led migration are all intimately linked to the processes of globalisation and restructuring in global and European political, economic, social and cultural relations since the late 1980s/early 1990s. It is not only the geography of flows which has been and is being transformed, but also the channels and structures--what Urry (2000) terms the ?scapes'--which mediate and are reshaped by these flows. The ?scapes? are being recast in part by technological changes in transport and communication, opening up new ways of travel and working, but they are also part of and subject to the systems which regulate migration and mobility. In part these are defined by national and supranational systems of regulation, including both the barriers to flows and the rights of permanent residence and citizenship. But they are also conditioned by the creation and renewal of informal migrant networks across space, and the ?grey? area of regulation constituted by the role of organised crime in the trafficking in people.

Presents information on the study that examined privatization and the development of tourism in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Analysis of the scale, mechanisms, and emergent ownership forms in the tourism sector in Central Europe; Economic consequences of privatization; Diversity of property rights, market segmentation, and the capital and debt structures of firms; Analysis of the value of the concept of recombinant property.

Focuses on the prospects of international retirement migration (IRM) in Europe. Provisions of IRM; Effects of IRM on regional economic geography; Significance of IRM for population geography.

This article reports that in September 2003, the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers organized a plenary on "European voices" at which the speakers were invited to address different approaches to the study of geography across Europe. "Approaches" were understood in terms of both methodologies and substantive issues, and indeed the ways in which these are related. The issues they raise underline the continuing need to engage in a real internationalization of academic discourses in urban and regional studies, as much as in geography. This is a goal to which the journal remains strongly committed, and which infuses both its publication goals, and its associated conferences.