Lost in Mobility? Labour migration from Baltic Lithuania to Sweden

Abstract

This thesis seeks to make both theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of intra-EU mobility, with a focus on labour migration from Lithuania to Sweden. The thesis aims to help to explain the dynamics and individual decision-making behind mass labour emigration from the Baltic states, its socioeconomic consequences and policy responses.
The dissertation shows that the consequences of the neoliberal policies of the post-communist and post-crisis transformations, together with the construction of formal migration channels after EU accession, constitute various migrant categories. Individual strategies of actively looking for channels to exit and enter, combining them in different ways at various points of the migratory process and establishing informal social networks are re-constituting who can be and who is a migrant. Furthermore, following the economic crisis and austerity measures, the decision to emigrate extends beyond individual survival strategies, instead becoming bound to an individual’s perception of the (ine)quality of life and pursuit of a better quality of life for oneself and one’s family across time and in different places.

Keywords

European integration, Migration, Welfare, Baltic states, Sweden

Publications

Genelyte, I. (2016) Policy Response to Emigration from the Baltics: Confronting “The European Elephant in the Room” in Jon Erik Dølvik, Line Eldring (ed.) Labour Mobility in the Enlarged Single European Market. Comparative Social Research, Volume 32, Emerald, pp.45 – 72.

Genelyte, I. (forthcoming) (Ine)Quality of Life: Lithuanian Labor Migration to Sweden during Economic Crisis and its Aftermath. Journal of Baltic Studies.

Genelyte, I. (forthcoming) The Two Sides of The Baltic Sea: Lithuanians as labour migrants and mobile EU citizens in Sweden. In Changes and challenges of cross-border labour mobility within the EU edited by Anna Ann Klitgaard and Trine Lund Tomsen, Peter Lang Publishing.