Non-salary employment conditions as a factor shaping migration decision-making: an example of workers from Ukraine in Poland

Abstract

The paper studies non-salary employment conditions as a factor affecting labour migrants’ choice the host country and a particular employer. It argues that the extant literature, focusing mainly on wage levels offered by employers, is insufficient to understand the decisions taken by migrants, especially if there is persistently low unemployment and high demand for foreign labour in a given market. A secondary analysis of the results of two empirical studies conducted in Poland in the period 2017–2019, focusing on various categories of Ukrainian workers, was used to shed a light on the role of non-salary employment conditions in the migration decision-making process. At that time, Poland encountered both low levels of unemployment and persistent demand for foreign workers, as well as liberal immigration regulations for labour immigration from selected Eastern European countries. Therefore, it met the conditions of the so-called migration laboratory.