Abstract
The tendency to leave and the actual number of people leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has been increasing in the last few years. We investigate the main determinants of people leaving BiH, with special focus on youth. Using the newest available data from USAID’s National Survey of Citizens Perceptions from 2017, we investigate this issue by using probit regressions. Attitudes and perceptions related to emigration from BiH are compared between two groups – youth up to the age of 30 and the rest of respondents. The analysis includes socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, their sentiment and satisfaction with life conditions, public services and government. The results imply that young respondents (under the age of 30) are more likely to consider leaving the country than older ones (above the age of 30). The results also show a significant positive effect of dissatisfaction with public services and high level of corruption on tendency to leave the country. The estimation of interaction effects imply that corruption is more prominent reason for emigration among youth than older respondents. Hence, the main issues which should be addressed to stop the trend of emigration are the improvement in the quality of public services and reduction in corruption.
Highlights
Research and discussions related to migration and especially migration of youth in Europe has been put in the spotlight in the last decade with the outbreak of global financial crisis (GFC) and economic crisis of 2008
If we focus on young respondents only, the findings indicate that young people from Republika Srpska (RS) are more likely to respond that they are willing to emigrate from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) compared to youth in Federation of BiH (FBiH) (Tables 8)
It has been noted that in Bosnia and Herzegovina there has been a high number of doctors leaving a country whose education is a high cost for the country (Vracic, 2018)
Summary
Turn increased academic interest in the topic related to youth and migration in the EU. There is no reliable estimate of BiH citizens living abroad since this estimate varies depending on data sources. High numbers of BiH citizens living abroad could be explained by migration from BiH during and right after the end of the war in BiH (1992–1995), but latest available data indicates that this percentage is not stagnant since people (and especially young people) are continuously leaving the country. According to the most recent Balkan Barometer (2017) survey which is conducted annually, about half of current BiH residents would like to leave the country and work abroad. Balkan Barometer (across time) reveals that the number of young people (ages 18–29) who wish to leave BiH (and South and Eastern European region) has been increasing over time. Based on the results in the final section policy recommendations of what could be done to prevent young people leaving BiH are given
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