Some Perspectives on Balkan Migration Patterns (with Particular Reference to Yugoslavia)

Joel Halpern, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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Abstract

To understand fully the meaning of contemporary population movements a view of the past is essential. In the period after World War II in the Balkans, mass population movements within countries have been influenced particularly by urban industrial developments. These reflect a delayed process when compared with Western Europe. Within the past decade and a half there has also been a movement of workers from the Balkan countries with open borders - Greece and Yugoslavia - to the labor-deficit countries of Western Europe. These population movements relate not only to altered individual social and economic value systems, but also to questions of ethnic identity. We are too close to these events to delineate them in a comprehensive manner, as both processes are ongoing. However, we can gain needed perspective by viewing them in the context of earlier mass movements, whether unique or regular movements.