Information About the Host Country before Immigration: How is it Related to Immigrants’ Basic Sociodemographic Characteristics?

Abstract

The study has been conducted within the ERASMUS+ KA2 partnership project “Improving the initial education of adult immigrants”. Research is based on the anonymous survey in which took part 1127 legal adult immigrants from outside the European Union. The study was performed in 2017 in the six European Union countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Belgium. The purpose of this article is to investigate how information about the host country before immigration is related to immigrants’ basic sociodemographic characteristics, i.e.: age, gender and education. Statistical data analysis showed a statistically significant difference between the information, which immigrants knew before their arrival in the host country, and education as well as age groups. However, there were no statistically significant differences found between the information, which immigrants knew before their arrival in the host country, and immigrants’ gender. Moreover, information that immigrants lack most prior to their arrival is related with health care and the employment system as well as the ability to learn the hosting country’s official language.