The Importance of Employment in Roma Social Integration: Looking Back at the Early Years of the Decade of Roma Inclusion

Abstract

Abstract This article critically compares Roma experience of the key role of employment in the period of Communism with that during the following two decades. It draws on my experience as an ethnological researcher from 1969 onwards and also later as an investigator evaluating Roma inclusion programmes for the European Commission in countries seeking membership of the European Union. It comes to the depressing conclusion that the majority of Roma remain largely excluded from mainstream society in spite of their own considerable efforts to improve their economic and social standing, as well as various initiatives of the European Union and NGOs. This situation poses a threat not only to Roma themselves but to the stability of the countries in which they live.