The character, the motion and the proportion of environment-induced migration have radically changed in recent years. Environment-induced migration is an increasingly recognized fact and has become one of the main challenges of the 21st century, and needs to be focused on to ensure sustainable growth. This new stance is due to the changing character of environmental degradation. Global environmental issues, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, river and oceanic contamination, land degradation, drought, and the destruction of rainforests, are progressively stressing the earth’s ecosystems. Among these issues, climate change is one of the most severe threats. Climate change alone does not directly induce people to move but it generates harmful environmental effects and worsens present vulnerabilities. The current study aims to provide cornerstone links between the effects of climate change, migration decisions, displacement risk and conflicts in the example of Afghanistan, as a country that is extremely affected by both climate change and conflicts, and outline priority policy focuses to mitigate the current situation in the country.
3 December 2020 in Journal of Tourism and Services
Global trends indicate a systematic increase in the importance of tourism. From an economic point of view, spending plays an essential role in the spectrum of tourism services indicators. Simultaneously, the competitiveness of economies is a key economic indicator; thus, research in this area is considered beneficial. This study's objective was to assess the significance of the structure of clients' spending on tourism in the context of the global competitiveness of OECD countries, with the primary focus on the effect of individual types of tourism spending on competitiveness. Several analytical procedures were used in the processing, such as descriptive analysis, relationship analysis, regression analysis, and cluster analysis. Secondary data were included in the analyses, and these data represented six variables determining tourism spending obtained from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) database: i - Business Tourism Spending (BTS), ii - Domestic Tourism Spending (DTS), iii - Internal T&T Consumption (ITTC), iv - Leisure Tourism Spending (LTS), v - Outbound Travel & Tourism Expenditure (OTTE), vi - Visitor Exports (Foreign spending) (VEFS); and one variable determining competitiveness: the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which was obtained from reports published by the World Economic Forum (WEF). These data were collected for all OECD countries from 2010 to 2018. The results of the regression analysis clearly confirmed the effect of tourism spending on competitiveness in OECD countries. The most significant effects were found in BTS and OTTE, and the least significant impact was identified in VEFS. The results provide valuable information for strategic and development plan makers and institutions responsible for improving the business environment in tourism. The study and its results also offer space for developing national and international benchmarking indicators in this area.
During the last decades, the deepening of globalisation has led to an intensification of two forms of international human mobility – tourism and migration. Considering the high proportion of migrant workers in the tourism industry, migration’s possible negative or positive impact on international tourism comes to the forefront. The current article aims to explore the influence of migration, including labour migration, on tourism flows and the impact of tourism flows and migration on the labour market both in donor and host countries. The statistical basis of the analysis was the annual panel data on labour market and tourism indicators for selected EU member states. We have built three panel data econometric models on 17 member states of the European Union on the data from 2005 to 2019. The results suggest that migration and labour migration are significant factors for international tourism and the labour market, with immigration positively impacting both the tourism industry and labour market. At the same time, emigration has a negative effect mainly due to the possible “brain drain” in the donor countries. On the other hand, international tourism has a strong positive influence on the labour market, providing strong evidence for the phenomena of migration-led tourism in the selected member-states of the European Union. Our primary assumption in this regard is that immigration and labour migration contribute to the increase in international tourism arrivals through VFR tourism and cultural enrichment of the destination countries. The current study contributes to the modern research on the interconnections between labour market and tourism. Policy makers can use the results to improve labour market and tourism conditions.
1 January 2022 in Problemy Polityki Społecznej. Social Policy Issues
While the Slovak Republic is not one of the traditional immigration destinations, in recent years, the situation has changed. The current paper aims to analyse the migration processes in the Slovak Republic and identify the determinants for immigration. The results show that during the last three decades, the accession to the European Union and Schengen area affected the migration patterns in Slovakia the most. One of the crucial determinants causing labour migration to the country is the domestic labour demand and labour shortage due to emigration flows. While the COVID-19 pandemic didn't significantly influence the migration processes in the country, the restrictive measures are affecting the employment of foreigners. On the other hand, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has caused unprecedented immigration flows to the country. The latter calls for a modernisation of immigration and integration policies that will lead to a more efficient labour market and sustainable economic growth in the Slovak Republic. Creating an Immigration and Naturalization Office aiming to bring together all migration processing and provision of related services is a necessary step forward in migration policy management. This article focuses on the migration developments shaping the migration policy in Slovakia in the near future and provides policy recommendations.
26 July 2022 in The EUrASEANs: journal on global socio-economic dynamics
Active labor market policy includes measures to facilitate the return to work (training courses for the unemployed, incentives for unemployed to return to work, support for creating new jobs, etc.). Within the EU countries, we can observe some convergence in the activation of the unemployed. On the other hand, there are also significant differences resulting from the different performance of their labour markets as well as the heterogeneity of their institutional environments. The current paper aims to analyse these tendencies in the example of the following countries: Austria, France, United Kingdom and Spain. The results show that despite some differences, the most significant common factor of the active labour market policy in the selected EU member states is tightening the program participation criteria.
30 November 2020 in The EUrASEANs: journal on global socio-economic dynamics
The Baltic States have been facing higher emigration flows since joining the EU in 2004. While integrating to the EU, this region has faced many economic and political issues, which revealed the weaknesses of their economic policies, financial systems and social security systems. Even though after the EU accession in 2004 the Baltic economies have demonstrated rapid economic growth, still their financial performance under the economic crisis has evidently shown their weaknesses. The Baltic States is a crucial example of the regions where the current emigration has drawn the attention of the policy-makers seeking to reduce the possible negative effects from the emigration of young and well-skilled workers. Here, we have employed fixed effects and OLS estimation methods to conduct our research analysis. Our regression analysis has demonstrated that remittances positively and significantly contribute to the economic growth of the Baltic. However, we also need to emphasize the importance of further analysis of the geography of remittances to the region, especially under the conditions of Brexit, given the fact that for many years a large share of remittances the Baltics were receiving from the United Kingdom. The effects of Brexit on the remittances flows from the United Kingdom to the Baltics will definitely take place in the future, thus, shifts in emigration flows and remittances should be in the focus of future research.