Grzegorz Kula (p), Agnieszka Kopanska

María Hierro

Population in Poland is ageing very fast and the problem of care provision for the elderly is particularly important, since the healthy life expectancy is not increasing as fast as the life expectancy and the family support, although it is the main source of help for the seniors, is not working well. In Polish system the local governments are responsible for providing social assistance for those in need. Thus, in this paper we analyze the differences in the supply of social assistance services to the elderly in Poland on NUTS 4 level, i.e. in counties. This research investigates two hypotheses. First, big cities are exporting out the care for the elderly to the surrounding metropolitan regions. Second, the level of social assistance to the elderly is highly regionalized, what is connected to regional wealth distribution – it is higher in poorer regions. Our initial result confirm these hypotheses and show that the spatial distribution of wealth and differences in demographic structure between regions, as well as other local characteristics have a significant impact on the demand and supply of social assistance services. The legal system is of particular significance, since it dictates what are the obligations of the local governments towards the elderly and how these local governments have to finance their tasks.

Yingxia Pu (p), Ying Ge, Roberto Patuelli, Zinyi Zhao

Grzegorz Kula

Migration is a path-dependent process over space and time. Empirical studies based on the ‘push-pull’ theory and gravity models have ignored this inherent relationship, thus failing to explore the complex spatiotemporal mechanisms. This study applied the dynamic spatial Durbin panel gravity model to quantify the dynamics of interprovincial migration flows in China for 1985–2020 from a systematic perspective. Specifically, we modelled interprovincial gross migration flows of 31 provinces in China as the dependent variable, regional GDP, population size, education level, and age structure at origins and destinations as well as their spatial lags and travel time as the explanatory (or gravity) variables. More importantly, the complex spatiotemporal relationships among migration flows were built by different types of spatial and temporal dependence, including origin-, destination-, and origin-to-destination-based network dependency and space-time diffusion structures, providing feasibility for modelling the simultaneity of migration systems. The Bayesian MCMC approach was employed to draw samples of the proposed model. Based on the parameter estimates, we obtained the contemporaneous, short-term, and long-run responses of migration flows to changes in regional characteristics as well as their origin, destination, and network spillover effects. The preliminary results indicate as follows: 1) ‘Origin push’ is much stronger than ‘destination pull’ in interprovincial migration processes in China, as was strongly confirmed by the much larger origin effects of regional variables than their corresponding destination effects. 2) Network spillover effects dominate in Chinese interprovincial migration movement. The significant positive origin-, destination-based spatial dependence and positive temporal autocorrelation further suggest that migration is a spatiotemporal path-dependent process. It is owed to the inherent space-time inertia that migration flows from each region interrelate and are interwoven into a complex migration system. 3) Regional economic development and education level play crucial roles in Chinese interprovincial migration processes, which is in line with our expectation. The origin effects and network spillover effects of regional GDP are significant negative, whereas the origin, destination, and network effects of education level are significant positive. However, we should pay much attention to the age structure of population in migration as its elasticities are larger than one. After open door and reform policy as well as ‘one-child policy’ since 1980s, people’s attitudes toward marriage and childbearing have changed greatly in an ageing society, thus exerting huge impacts on migration and society. Without considering regional contexts, the roles of regional factors on migration can be misleading.

Yuke Fatihaturrahmah, Irfani Fithria Ummul Muzayanah (p), Putu Angga Widyastaman, Kenny Devita Indraswari, Djoni Hartono

Yingxia Pu

Social capital has gained much attention since it positively contributes to many economic and social outcomes. Moreover, social capital can also be a strong deterrent to crime and violation behavior. Scholars argued that stronger social ties allow an accessible exchange of information and characteristics among criminals, which later reduce the cost of crime. Social capital determines the relationship between individuals and other members of society, hence, it will affect the cost incurred by individuals in committing crimes. Higher benefits of social capital will reduce the net benefit of committing crimes since criminals will be excluded from society and lose sympathy from their peers. Strong social capital can also strengthen informal control and result in lower crime rates. Furthermore, social capital can foster a sense of attachment to their place of residence, thus giving rise to 'guardianship' and trying to avoid the negative effects of crime as part of the process of creating a sense of security in social life. However, the role of social capital in crime victimization has received less attention.
This research aims to investigate the role of social capital on crime victimization in Indonesia. We utilize data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) in 2014, specifically the core questionnaires and Social Resilience Module. Susenas is a series of large-scale surveys that covers a nationally representative sample of households. The social Resilience Module provides detailed questions regarding social capital measurement and this survey is first administered in 2014. We employ two main indicators of social capital such as trust and knowing neighbors as we argued that a society with higher social capital is characterized by a high level of trust and this level of trust only can be acquired if they are knowing each other. Meanwhile, we categorize two types of crime including property crime and violent crime as these two crimes are most dominant in Indonesia.
We also acknowledged that social capital is potential to endogeneity problems. Hence, we try to use instrumental variables in our estimation and provide a causal analysis between social capital and crime victimization. Our results showed that knowing neighbor plays a crucial element in reducing the risk of property crimes. However, we found an insignificant role of trust in reducing both property and violent crimes. This result corroborated our hypothesis that a certain level of trust in society can only be maintained if they are knowing each other.

Ana-Maria Agape (p), Corneliu Iațu

Irfani Fithria Ummul Muzayanah

Neamț county is a medium size administrative unit in the North-East of Romania and the evolution of this school network after the fall of communist regime in Romania was marked by a special moment in 2011, when the National Education Act specifically required to enrol special needs students in regular classes.
Integrating special needs students in regular classes is a long-time desire for their parents and the educational system in Romania. Although, huge efforts have been made by the system and especially by the parents of these special needs students, they continue to be poorly represented in the total number of school population. Since 2011, the number of special needs students integrated in regular classes have increased constantly, but the general perception is that they need to be maintained in special institutions instead of adapting the schools to their needs.
The integration of students with special needs is the subject of a very extensive literature, but the approach to this phenomenon is done only from the perspective of educational sciences. This communication is focused on analyzing the spatial repartition of special needs students in schools from Neamț County, Romania, in this scholar year (2022-2023). This is the first geographical analysis of special needs students in regular schools in Neamț County. The main interest of the research is to identify if there are any points in the school network that prove a ‘higher’ concentration of special needs students and what type of special need they have.
For the present research was analysed a statistic required by the Neamț School Inspectorate regarding the type of special need and the number of students with special needs enrolled in regular classes in Neamț County. Also, it is very important to state that no personal data of the students was requested during this research. The date was provided by the educational institutions belonging to the school network in Neamț county. This data was compared with a personal research of the authors among the schools in Neamț county regarding the total number of students with special needs enrolled in regular schools and the year when each school has registered the first student with special needs.
This analysis is necessary in order to know how to distribute the educational resources at the territory level so that they are useful to students, parents and teachers

Marius Braun, Jarom Goerts (p)

Ana-Maria Agape

In recent decades, the European Union has experienced an increase in the frequency of climate-related natural disasters. While a large body of literature analyzing the impact of natural disasters on migration patterns in the U.S. and other areas has emerged, little research has been conducted for the European Union. In this paper, we attempt to close this gap in the literature and investigate the impact of climate-related disasters on NUTS-2 region-level migration for the period 2000-2019. Employing spatial econometric methods, we find that experiencing one additional storm event leads to a 0.04 percentage point decrease in the net migration rate at the NUTS-2 region level, corresponding to an increase in net out-migration of 0.4 individuals per 1000 inhabitants. When using spatial Durbin models, we observe a positive effect of storm events on net migration in neighboring regions, suggesting that individuals migrate primarily across shorter distances in response to storms. In addition, we find that one additional cold wave is associated with an increase in net in-migration of 0.4 and 0.9 individuals per 1000 inhabitants after two and three years, respectively. For other types of events, we find no conclusive evidence that disasters are driving regional migration. Moreover, we find no effect of severe disasters on migration.

María Hierro (p), Adolfo Maza

Jarom Goerts

Since the emergence of the independent Ukrainian state in 1991, Ukrainian migration has been economically driven, with Russia and Central and Eastern Europe (mainly Poland and Czech Republic) as the main destinations. Other countries, such as Germany and some Southern European countries (mainly Italy, Spain and Portugal) have also played a role. Recent conflict and violence since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, 2022 have forcibly displaced millions of Ukrainians to the European Union (EU). Unlike other flows of Ukrainian nationals in the past, it represents an exceptional situation of force migration in which the EU has activated, for the first time since its enactment, the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation with Ukraine, a country with very close cultural and ethnic ties to Europe. In fact, by invoking the TDP Ukrainian nationals can move freely within the EU and obtain immediate right to live and work, with access to health and education and, most importantly, circumventing long and tedious administrative procedures to make the EU their temporary home (situation hereby extended until March 2024).
Our main hypothesis is that the current forced character of the displacements, the chance of refugees to choose a destination under the activation of the TPD and the absolute uncertainty surrounding the possibility of ever returning home might embark Ukrainian migration to the EU into a new migration phase. To this concern, this study is interested in the role played by social networks in the settlement patterns of Ukrainian refugees. Specifically, the study shines the spotlight on ascertaining the way in which first flows of Ukrainian refugees have shaped the settlement patterns of refugees in subsequent months, in combination with the effect of pre-war social networks. In order to do it, we estimate an equation linking the number of Ukrainian nationals under temporal protection in each EU country for any given month since March 2022 with the corresponding figure registered in the preceding months, as well as with the number of valid residence permits of at least 12 months held by Ukrainian citizens at the end of 2021 as an estimate of long-standing Ukrainian communities in the EU. The estimation also includes a set of control variables to account for the potential causal effect of geographical distance, cultural proximity, perception of quality of life in the EU, earnings in destination, size of the informal sector, and anti-immigrant sentiment.