Modelling the factors influencing migration processes in the European Union

Abstract

The countries of the European Union have traditionally been actively involved in the processes of international labour migration. Given the existence of a general strategy for regulating these processes, there are significant differences in the mechanisms of their implementation in the context of individual national business environments. This research identifies the factors influencing the formation of volumes, directions, and structure of the system of migration flows in the European region based on the conducted economic and mathematical modelling. Thus, it is possible to state the fact of exclusively economic reasons for labour migration. The social factor, represented by the size of wages, is derived from the economic one and has a secondary impact. The environmental factor does not affect the intensification of migration processes. The basic factors in determining the current migration policy of the EU are the general situation on the world labour market, the state of socio-economic development of the region, the structure of domestic production and consumption in individual countries. An additional factor influencing today is the nature of the crisis, the cause of which is not economic and financial, but medical and social one. Given the sustainability of the factors of influence, it is possible to predict changes in the main trends of international labour migration in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. The consequences are not only a change in migration policy within the region, but also a strategy to attract external migrants from donor countries and the development of a special system for managing migration processes in the new environment.