Emigration in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Empirical Evidence from the Last Two Decades

In this study, we empirically analyse intentions to emigrate from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), focusing on individual, household, regional and socio-economic determinants, including specific influences relevant to the post-conflict nature of this society. We rely on a series of annual country-representative survey data collected over the period 2006–2010 and the latest repeated survey from 2019. This gives us the possibility to see whether there are changes in observed determinants with a decade’s difference, all investigated through non-linear econometric models. Moreover, we supplement quantitative research with qualitative in-depth interviews to enrich our results with deeper insights collected from both emigrants and potential emigrants in BiH. Our findings indicate that higher intentions to emigrate are linked to typical individual and household conditions: young, educated and low-income respondents all report high intentions to do so. However, the socio-economic environment characterised by economic – and, even more, by political – instability increases these intentions considerably. Our comparative analysis reports that the socio-economic environment has taken primacy over individual characteristics as drivers of emigrations which dominated a decade ago. Conventional thinking that economic drivers of emigration intentions dominate nowadays have not been confirmed. Policymakers should focus on improving primarily political stability as a measure that will decrease emigration intentions in this post-conflict society.