Family Influences on Migration Intentions: The Role of Past Experience of Involuntary Immobility

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between past experience of involuntary immobility in a family and the current migration intentions of its members. While family migration experience has been shown to be positively related to migration intentions, the role of past unrealised migration intentions in a family is understudied. Using the case of the former communist bloc, we focus on the migration intentions of people whose family members’ mobility aspirations were stifled by the restrictive political regime. Drawing on data from the Life in Transition III Survey, we show that close relatives of people who had been prohibited from going abroad under communist rule are more likely to report migration intentions compared with people without such family experience. We explain these findings with the intergenerational transmission of mobility aspirations.