Employment Precarization and Skilled Labour Migration in Western EU Countries

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between employment precariousness and high-skilled migration. There exists a large number of studies investigating the effects of precarious employment on various issues ranging from unemployment to job insecurity, however, the studies on the effects of precariousness on migration are scarce. In addition, in scholarly literature, high-skilled migration in developed economies is presented as a specific migration with patterns differing from those from low-income countries or among those with lower educational attainment. For these reasons, data from a relatively homogeneous sample of EU-15 or Western European countries that represent the highly developed European sub-region were selected. In the analysis, fixed-effects linear regression was applied. The model included part-time, involuntary part-time, temporary, involuntary temporary, short-term employment, un-employment, and earnings as independent variables and the emigration of people with tertiary education as a dependent variable. The analysis showed that involuntary part-time and short-term employment are significant positive predictors of high-skilled emigration. Meanwhile, unemployment and earnings did not predict high-skilled labour mobility in the sample of EU-15 countries. The results support the implication that labour precariousness may be related to increased emigration of those with higher education in developed economies.


Introduction
European Integration Studies 2023/17 154 grate more due to severe disadvantages when compared to full-time open-ended jobs, in the present work, fixed-effects regression was applied on macro-level data from EU-15 countries in the period between 2000 and 2019.

Definition of precarious employment
The notion of precarious employment does not have a universally recognized definition and it is typically used in a referential form, addressing the objective and subjective insecurities related to employment.According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), within the variety of context-specific definitions, precarious employment can be identified as work carried out in both formal and informal economies and characterized by varying degrees of objective (in terms of legal status) and subjective (in terms of feeling) elements of employment insecurity and uncertainty (Cunniah, 2012).Due to the multidimensional approach to labour precariousness, many studies narrow down their focus to the forms of employment and "whether an individual is employed on a non-standard contract" (Olsthoorn, 2014).It is suggested that focusing on the types of employment contracts presents greater availability of data required for the analysis and does not go far from the object of the study as the employment position "is the key element of precarious employment" (Altmann et al., 2010).In addition, national and regional experiences with non-standard forms of employment such as temporary or part-time jobs and their variation also occupy the larger part of presented case studies on precarious employment, its causes, and consequences (Rodgers & Rodgers, 1989).Although all types of job contracts can have a degree of precariousness within them, non-standard types of contracts entail a higher risk of precariousness compared to standard full-time open-ended employment (Budowski et al., 2010).Non-standard and flexible employment contracts embody "the dynamic and temporal aspect of living and working conditions" to which precariousness refers (Budowski et al., 2010).Even if the individuals under such employment are not facing difficulties related to precariousness presently, such employment "represents the anticipation of possible disadvantages in the future" (Budowski et al., 2010).Furthermore, the aspect of involuntariness is also of relevance when studying the effects of precarious employment on contemporary life.Involuntary type of employment refers to individuals who cannot find preferable full-time employment and, thus, have to accept what is available, such as part-time employment (Fagan et al., 2014) even though it has negative repercussions on their financial and other wellbeing.Empirical data suggest that over the last decades, the growth in non-standard employment has been accompanied by an expansion of involuntary part-time, temporary, or other types of non-standard jobs (Fagan et al, 2014;ILO, 2015).Yet, the incidence of involuntary non-standard employment in the EU has not attracted enough attention in the academic community (Green and Livanos, 2017).The present study will address this shortcoming in the existing literature by including the aspect of involuntariness in the study on employment precarization.

The rise of precarious work in Europe
Over the last two decades, non-standard employment has been rising fast in the EU (Fig. 1), accompanied by increasing job insecurity, with young workers and women remaining the most vulnerable (Broughton et al., 2016).Overall, the possibility to find permanent employment, which significantly reduces employment precariousness, has considerably decreased over the period of 2002-2017 across the EU, as the share of temporary employees in the EU rose from 11% in 2002 to 13% in 2017, based on the Eurostat data (Eurostat, 2018).Although non-standard employment has become more prevalent in the EU, Eastern European countries have been less affected by labour market flexibilization and generally have lower numbers of atypical jobs than Western Europe (Plantenga & Remery, 2010;Kuddo, 2009).Moreover, there is a great variation among the EU Member States in terms of the extent and the types of non-standard employment.For example, the Netherlands is more associated with part-time work, while Spain with fixed-term (temporary) employment (European Commission, 2011).High-skilled migration within the EU In classic theories of migration, education, and skills are distinguished as separate factors influencing migratory flows differently from the common migration patterns.For example, within a neoclassical approach to migration, Lewis (1954) presumes that highly skilled migrants may exhibit a different pattern of migration to one of unskilled workers as they respond to the rate of return to human capital, which may differ from the wage rate.In recent decades, a substantial increase in the number of holders of tertiary educational attainment also prompts to hypothesize that there is "an increasingly large pool of educated and discontented potential" (Stahl, 1995).Thus, the role of education and skill-related determinants of migratory flows have become considerably more relevant.Highly skilled migration is becoming a key characteristic of contemporary international migration, and the patterns of emigration of the high-skilled differ when comparing developed and developing countries (Docquier & Rapoport, 2012).For example, high-skilled migration from developed countries is less responsive to distance and the level of development at the origin (Docquier & Rapoport, 2012).Other studies suggest that higher salaries, better working conditions, and better career opportunities are the most common reasons to emigrate among highly skilled, who typically have greater career aspirations than those with lower educational attainment (Richardson & Henning, 2021).Stahl (1995) argued that global migratory processes will become more complex with the development of regional trading blocs, while labour market forces will have more influence over international migration flows than political forces.Deepening economic integration and changing labour relations are creating new compositions of push and pull factors, which in turn may produce new trajectories of international migration.In this changing global environment, the EU stands as a distinct scene where migration processes exhibit different patterns and migration motives have been increasingly diversified (Van Mol & de Valk, 2016).Recent evidence indicates that there has been a considerable increase in the share of high-skilled EU movers amongst the employed population in the EU countries from 2004 to 2016 (ICF, 2018).In fact, based on European Commission estimates (ICF, 2018), the proportion of high-skilled EU immigrants among the employed population in the region almost tripled from 2004 to 2016, reaching 3.6 million in 2016.Thus, recent migration trends raise the need for studies of the determinants of high-skilled labour mobility.

Connecting intra-EU migration and precarious employment
The neoclassical migration theories placed great importance on wage differentials in the literature on international migration, where higher salaries work as pull factors encouraging workers who earn lower wages in their home country to migrate to another country for higher returns (Massey et al., 1993).Yet, more recent literature suggests other factors that might be influential in decisions to migrate, especially in contemporary developed economies (Stahl, 1995;de Haas, 2021).With growing interest in precarious employment, there is an increasing number of studies linking international migration and labour precarity (Becic et al., 2019;Cieslik, 2011;Marcu, 2019;Monastririotis & Sakkas, 2021;Villarreal & Blanchard, 2013).Cieslik (2011) suggested that migration decisions are influenced by employment conditions, including the quality of work, job security, stability, and the possibility of advancement.The emphasis is put on skilled migrants as they are less likely to migrate due to severe economic hardships.Meanwhile, in a qualitative interview-based study, Marcu (2019) reported that migrants practice mobility for a while and return to their country of origin or to the first country of migration as they are driven by aspirations to find stable places in both their professional and personal spheres of life.In this way, intra-EU migrants are practicing "mobility as resistance to precarity" which surrounds them in emigration (Marcu, 2019).Other related studies show that employees subjected to precarious working conditions may experience higher job turnover and occupational mobility as they opt for wage increases and ways to exit precarious employment situations (Choper et al., 2022;Monsueto et al., 2014).Unstable and unpredictable or, in other words, precarious work schedules negatively affect economic and non-economic life by increasing financial instability, interfering with caregiving and other obligations, as well as reducing general job satisfaction (Choper et al., 2022).Furthermore, evaluating the effects of individuals' employment conditions on their likelihood of migrating, Villarreal and Blanchard (2013) found that individuals employed in the informal sector had significantly higher chances of migrating than their peers in the formal sector.Individuals in the informal sector are disadvantaged in that they receive lower returns to their skills, they work under poor conditions and their jobs are less secure.Becic et al. (2019) conducted a quantitative analysis of the effects of precarious employment on migration movements from Croatia and selected eight Central and Eastern European countries.They found that precarious employment measured by short-term contracts is a statistically significant predictor of emigration flows from Croatia, as well as Central and Eastern European countries.
The applicable studies suggest that labour precariousness is a relevant factor when explaining migration flows in contemporary economies.However, the migration of high-skilled workers has received little attention with regard to precarious employment.As presented above, precarious work influences higher job turnover, employment insecurity, and greater dissatisfaction.Meanwhile, high-skilled individuals are considered to be more sensitive to the quality of employment conditions rather than wages when it comes to decisions to migrate, especially in developed economies where they are less susceptible to severe economic hardships (Cieslik, 2011).Thus, the present work will aim to address the question of whether labour precarity can predict highskilled emigration within the EU. in terms of the level of economic development, higher incomes, and historical experiences.These countries have been for a longer period within the European Union.As older members of the European Union, the EU-15 have enjoyed the free movement of capital and people and have been subject to the process of labor market integration for a longer period of time.In addition, this sample of countries also exhibits a similar trajectory of neoliberalism and timing of its implementation when comparing Western and Eastern Europe.This factor is important given that the increase in non-standard forms of employment is generally associated with the spread of neoliberal policies in Europe (Mijs et al., 2016).In addition, intra-EU migrants from these countries tend to have higher education levels as compared to the EU-10 (eastern enlargement countries) (Castro-Martín & Cortina, 2015; Klekowski von Koppenfels & Höhne, 2017; Verwiebe et al., 2014).Furthermore, the available data for this group of countries are more reliable and contains fewer missing values.» In addition, the involuntary character of non-standard employment was also accounted for in the analysis as the lack of alternatives for employment further aggravates employment precariousness.Macro data from Eurostat for the sample of chosen countries allow to discern the "lack of choice" elements for two types of non-standard employment: part-time and temporary employment.
To explore the emigration flows of skilled workers and their determinants, a fixed-effects linear model was built.A fixed-effects model was chosen as a robust method for panel data since it allows one to control potential confounders related to countries and periods, and to avoid omitted variable bias.For example, while precarious work has generally tended to increase over the years, there are also substantial differences in this regard between countries (see Figure 1).Thus, categorical variables (country and year) were used as fixed effects.
The independent variables indicating the risk of employment precariousness are the following: » Temporary employment.The percentage of temporary employees from the total number of employees.Temporary employment includes jobs under fixed-term contracts, although the period of employment is not specified.Employment is considered temporary when the employer and employee agree on the exact end date.» Involuntary temporary employment as a percentage of the total number of temporary employees.Although there is no separate dataset specifically for involuntary temporary employment in the Eurostat dataset, involuntariness was based on the reason for temporary employment which was defined as "no permanent job found".» Short-term (ST) employment (< 3 months contract) as a percentage of total employment.» Part-time (PT) employment as a percentage of total employment.Part-time employment is estimated according to a spontaneous response by the respondent.The main exception out of the analyzed countries is the Netherlands, where a 35 hours threshold is applied.» Involuntary PT employment is measured as a percentage of total part-time employment.
Involuntary part-time employment is estimated based on respondents' reports who say they work part-time as they are unable to find full-time work.
Other influential factors of the labour market which could affect emigration trends were selected for the model: » Unemployment rates (UR).
» The dependent variable consisted of the natural logarithm of the number of people born in each country in the sample who usually reside in any other EU-28 country except the country of origin.The dataset was filtered to include only the persons with tertiary education to explore the emigration trends of the highskilled labour force.This data take into account only those movements which are characterized by an official change of residence to another member state, meaning that individuals reside (or intend to do so) in another country for at least 12 months (excluding short-term movements).
The formal expression of the fixed-effects regression model is as follows: ln_emigration ct = β 1 temporary ct + β 2 inv_temporary ct + β 3 ST ct + β 4 PT ct + β 5 inv_PT ct + β 6 UR ct + β 7 earnings ct + α c + α t + ε ct , where the subscripts c and t correspond to entity (country) and time (year), respectively.The coefficients of interest are β with subscripts 1-5, which measure the response of the dependent variable (emigration of skilled labour force) to changes in labour market conditions associated with precarious employment (temporary, involuntary temporary, short-term, part-time and involuntary part-time employment).α i and α t denote country and time fixed effects, while ε ct is the error term.

Results and discussion
Six models with different sets of independent variables were used in the analysis (Table 2).Columns 1-3 correspond to separate sets of variables that reflect temporary employment, parttime employment, and other labour market factors (unemployment and earnings), respectively.
Column 4 includes all variables related to precarious employment, except two of the variables reflecting involuntariness.In column 5, variables reflecting involuntariness were added, and column 6 includes all the independent variables used in this study.
The results suggest that temporary employment is not a significant predictor of skilled emigration.Temporary workers may accept such employment conditions as they aim to gain more work experience, learn new skills, and/or juggle between work and personal life, which translates into higher job satisfaction and desired job security among temporary employees (De Cuyper & De Witte, 2007;Tan & Tan, 2002).It can be argued that in such cases temporary workers have lower expectations for job security from their employment situation as they knowingly enter into fixedterm contracts, which ultimately will end up at the time agreed upon.In other words, the gap between the actual experience of security versus the preferred level of security might not be as large as in the case of permanent employees (or part-time employees).Conversely, higher short-term employment significantly predicts an increase in skilled emigration.Short-term employment differs from temporary employment in its length as it necessarily lasts less than 3 months, while temporary contracts have no precise period specified.It means that temporary contracts can last for up to even a year or more.In the literature, very short-period employment is often more associated with precarious work than other types of non-standard employment (Becic et al., 2019;Wiengarten et al., 2021).For workers with employment contracts of a very short duration, the probability of engaging in the same type of employment is high, while obtaining a secure and permanent contract is more difficult (Broughton et al., 2016;Grimshaw et al., 2016).Evaluation of very short fixed-term contracts in France showed that shortterm workers earn even lower wages than temporary agency workers and do not have additional compensation in the case of illness as opposed temporary agency workers (Broughton et al., 2016).Standing (2021) states that short-termism is a specific feature of those among precarious ranks and that "the low probability of personal progress or building a career" is a defining characteristic of precarious employment.It can be especially detrimental to those with higher educational attainment who are expected to be more long-term oriented and have certain career goals that they wish to pursue.
In the case of part-time employment, only involuntary part-time employment was a significant positive predictor of skilled labour emigration.In addition, the model with only part-time work-related variables (Table 2, column 2) had a considerably higher R 2 , compared to other models in columns 1-3, suggesting that involuntary part-time contributes the most among all the predictors in explaining the variance in skilled emigration.According to relevant studies, high numbers of part-time workers are on the constant lookout for full-time employment (OECD, n.d.).Literature suggests that underemployment, income inadequacy, lack of working hours, inadequate utilization of workers' skills, and little space for training and self-improvement can be used to explain why part-time work contracts yielded such results (Feldman, 1996;Heyes & Tomlinson, 2020;Hirsch, 2005;Nielsen et al., 2021).
As for the control variables, a negative relationship between earnings and skilled emigration was present when the control variables were taken in isolation (Table 2, column 3), however, in the full model (Table 2, column 6) earnings did not reach statistical significance.In addition, unemployment remained insignificant in both models.These results suggest that employment precarization is a better determinant of skilled emigration than earnings or unemployment.
Involuntary part-time and involuntary temporary employment were expressed as percentages of total part-time and total temporary employment, respectively.However, as can be seen in Table 1, these shares are relatively large, when compared to other variables, which could have affected the results of the model.Thus, an additional model was built by including involuntary part-time and involuntary temporary employment as a percentage of total employment.This expression was not available in the Eurostat database for involuntary part-time employment, but it was accessible from the OECD database (OECD obtains data on labour market characteristics in the EU countries in cooperation with Eurostat).Involuntary part-time workers, on average, comprised 4.21 ± 2.29 %, while temporary workers -7.26 ± 5.62 % of total employees.The results of the full fixed-effects model still yielded significance for short-term employment (b = 0.11, p = 0.03) and involuntary part-time employment (b = 0.04, p = 0.02), with other variables showing no statistical significance.
The analysis was further extended by running a fixed-effects regression with the total number of emigrants as a dependent variable (Table 2).The same Eurostat dataset as for the emigration of high-skilled workers was used, however, in this case, the data were not filtered by the level of education.In contrast to the output of the main model, total emigration was not predicted by any of the independent variables used in the analysis.Those who are high-skilled and have higher educational attainment (in the present case, those with tertiary educational attainment) might be more prone to experience job dissatisfaction in short-term employment or being subjected to underemployment.This is because high-skilled individuals with university degrees "expect to hold certain kind of positions", that is, higher employment positions than their coworkers with lower educational attainment (Burris, 1983).Burris (1983) theorizes that university (or college) educated individuals feel that they have certain entitlements for privileged positions precisely because of their education, even if they lack the actual technical skills required to perform the job.Therefore, for educated individuals in precarious positions, who believe that their educational credentials have to secure them "the good jobs", job dissatisfaction might be the driving force out of the short-term and/or part-time jobs and ultimately out of the country where they are unable to secure themselves employment corresponding to their subjective status and expectations.The feeling of "being stuck" in terms of professional career development might drive those with specific career orientations out of the labour markets that offer them only precarious forms of employment below their interests and qualifications.This argument is also supported by empirical findings in scholarly studies, which show that educational-occupational matching is an influential factor in the decision to migrate (Quinn & Rubb, 2005).

Limitations
In the present work, macro-level data were used for the analysis.Future studies may benefit from the use of individual data to elucidate more specific factors shaping regional migratory flows.The limitation of this work is the lack of variables identifying where the education was obtained (in a home country or abroad).From the data presented and used in the present study, it is not known where higher education is achieved.Thus, future studies could exclude those emigrating to other European countries due to reasons of education.Age is another important factor that can be included in similar research.Generally, younger workers who just start to explore their employment possibilities, do not have strong family commitments, have higher levels of education, and wish for better living conditions, are more likely to migrate than older people (Belmonte et al., 2020).Moreover, young people are estimated to be more affected by precarious jobs in the EU (Carmo et al., 2014;Lodovici & Semenza, 2012), which may also indicate that they are more prone to emigrate abroad due to reasons related to labour precarization.
In addition, individual data might also help to address the issue of circular migration as migration processes within the EU are increasingly temporary or circular referring to "a repetition of legal migration by the same person between two or more countries" for work or study-related reasons (European Commission, 2011).As a result, oftentimes it becomes complicated to determine in which country migrants are actually based, and these forms of migration are not typically recorded in official statistics since authorities do not know about the departure of these individuals (Verwiebe et al., 2014).Furthermore, it is important to account for the timing of entering or leaving the country, as well as the intentions of labour mobility, whether they intend to settle permanently or come for a short period.
In similar analyses, additional variables such as the industry of work might provide significant implications for practice and policy.It also can better address some of the issues raised when discussing the results of the present work, especially regarding highly skilled workers and the importance of high education on the attitudes towards precarious employment and migratory aspirations.Industry and the type of work these individuals have would provide insights into whether over-education is an important factor when considering the effects of precarious work on migration.Moreover, it would also help to address the question of the brain drain and if we have precarity-related emigration from high-value-added industries such as information and communications technology (ICT) where labour shortages are increasingly acute.

Conclusions
The results of the present study suggest that factors related to precarious employment predict high-skilled emigration from Western EU countries.Fixed-effects regression model predicted that two types of non-standard contracts, namely, involuntary part-time and short-term employment, could lead to higher emigration rates from Western EU countries.Thus, the involuntariness of non-standard forms of employment has also proved to be relevant when predicting high-skilled emigration.The latter result indicates that psychological aspects such as perceived insecurities and a lack of choice within the given system may be an important aspect of precarious work that leads to migration decisions.
Interestingly, the model that measured precarious employment effects on total migration from Western EU countries (regardless of educational attainment) did not yield any significant results.Such a finding illustrates that precarious work might affect those with higher education differently.Status frustration, over-qualification, and dissatisfaction with given employment might be important factors shaping the perceptions of the high-skilled about their jobs and leading them to the decision to migrate.This is an important finding for current European policy affairs as the region is facing increasing skilled labour shortages and aims to attract and retain highly skilled workers.
The further spread of precarious jobs might intensify issues related to dissatisfaction with employment among the highly skilled and elevate their mobility rates.As a result, precarious employment might become an even more urgent issue as it can undermine European social development.Consequently, attention to the changing labour environment may grow among the highest EU ranks if the region wants to ensure its progress towards a welfare state.
Figure 1 Share of (a) part-time and (b) temporary employment as a percentage of total employment in 2002 (x axis) and 2019 (y axis).Data represent workers aged 20-64 in each of the EU-15 countries from two Eurostat databases: Employment and Unemployment (Labour Force Survey, LFS) and the Earnings category of the Labour Market database.The data were selected based on the following general criteria: » Persons of working age (20-64 year-old).According to Eurostat, this age group at least partially eliminates the influence of young persons who are most likely still completing their studies and are not active in the labour market.» Annual reports in a period between 2000 and 2019.» The sample of EU-15 countries (Western European countries), including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.This set of European countries is chosen due to the following reasons.The sample is more homogenous (compared with other European countries) The empirical analysis aims to test whether high-skilled emigration of the working-age population responds to employment precariousness.For this reason, Eurostat (Statistical Office of the European Union) aggregated macro data were chosen.The data used for the analysis were Data and methods extracted Earnings.Average net annual earnings by a single person, measured in thousands in Purchasing Power Standard (PPS).