Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007

Table 4.6. Migration characteristics by ethnicity and poverty status
Non-mover poverty line
Migrant poverty line
Above Below Above Below
Total 92.6 7.4 94.6 5.4
Serbs ( n= 14 979) 94.1 5.9 95.2 4.8
Hungarians (n= 580) 94.5 5.5 97.3 2.7
Roma (n= 456) 47.2 52.8 58.4 41.6
Other (n=1 360) 92.2 7.8 95.6 4.4
4.3. Ethnicity of non-movers and
migrants
Large differences in standard of living, based
on migration status and ethnicity can be observed
(Table 6).
If the proportion of Serbs is analysed in
relation to migration and the poverty line, the values
are close to the overall level since the majority of
the population is Serbian. The results of Census
2002 and LSMS 2007 shows low level of spatial
mobility of the Roma population, which diverges
from the customary opinion of the Roma being
nomadic. Of the total Roma number, 32 percent of
them were moving, mostly to urban areas, which is
by 14 percent less than the republican average. The
Roma population is specific since they have
extremely high proportion of the poor both among
the non-mover and migrant population. There are as
much as 52.8 percent of the Roma who have never
changed the location of their residence and this ethic
community is the only one with the higher recorded
proportion of the poor than of those who “crossed”
the poverty line. In the migrant group 41.6 percent
of the Roma persons are poor. The reasons for such
a high percentage of the poor can be found in the
unfavourable educational level of the Roma
population which had a negative affect on its
professional structure displaying a high proportion
of the simplest professions.
Hungarians in Serbia also have above-theaverage
proportion in the non-mover population. A
high percentage of the non-mover population from
the Hungarian ethnic group may be interpreted in
the light of their high average age, as well as a high
proportion of agricultural population which is
certainly not an incentive for their spatial mobility.
However, as opposed to the Roma population, the
Hungarians have a small proportion of the poor both
within the non-mover and migrant population. If we
consider the educational structure to be one of the
factors in negative correlation with the poverty line,
then the fact that illiteracy is practically eradicated
among the members of this nationality and the
proportion of persons without education is almost
irrelevant, contributed to the proportions of the poor
Hungarians being below the republican average.
4.4. Households according to the
migratory characteristics of their
members
Migration studies after World War 2 were
mostly based on the results of Censuses. The extent,
dynamics and type of spatial mobility of the
population were analyzed on the basis of individual
characteristics of migrants regardless of whether
only individual members of a household or
complete households moved.
The second half of the 20 th century in Serbia
began with the agrarian colonization of Vojvodina
when whole households from the passive areas of
the former SFRY republics settled in the fertile
plain. In the period of intensive country-to-town
migrations in 1950s and 1960s, as well as in the
period of mass departure of labour to the developed
European countries from the mid 1960s, often it was
individuals who moved but their departure had an
impact on the household. Due to the huge
economic, social and political crisis in the country
in 1990s, as well as the war, the families of young,
educated married couples migrated abroad while at
the same time, tens of thousands of refugee
households came to Serbia.
Using LSMS 2007 households have been
categorised according to the migratory
characteristics of their members into three groups:
non-mover (households without members who have
moved), migrant (households in which all members
have moved at least once) and mixed (households
with at least one non-mover member and at least
one migrant member).
54 Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007