Johanna Trager (p)

Ahmed Bakry

Cross-border commuting as a special form of migration takes place in regions geographically close to national borders. Whilst potentially motivated by the same factors that motivate migration, research on cross-border commuting is often limited to the economic incentives and therefore to the neoclassical theory of migration. Network impacts, for example, are only briefly mentioned and often not supported by theory. The forces that drive companies along national borders to hire cross-border commuters are also not included in current research, however, crucial to understand the dynamics of the development of cross-border commuting - especially in times of digitalization and skill shortage. This research focuses on the motivation of Czech labor force to commute to Germany and the motivation of German companies to hire Czech cross-border commuters. Special attention is set on the impact of networks, the commuters' household and family situation, the skill shortage, as well as digitalization and automatization in German companies. Preliminary findings show that economic incentives play a crucial role, however, do not fully describe the dynamics of commuting. A commuter's household and regional belonging is part of the bigger picture. Private networks of cross-border commuters are the main form of communicating vacancies - not only initiated by the cross-border commuters but also by the companies. Digitalization eases the language barriers and automatization changes the jobs of cross-border commuters but not the labor demand. Finally, the difference in vocational training on a low to medium-skilled level in Germany and the Czech Republic creates a spill-over effect of knowledge useful for German companies.

Gabor Lados (p)

Johanna Trager

Today, there are many ethnic groups in Europe whose main goal is to preserve their identity. Although assimilation challenges the survival of ethnic minorities in all levels of life (e.g. education, administration, cultural life, or business activities), nationality is a strong feature of the everyday lives of these group members. This is particularly true in border areas where the borderline is the external border of the EU. Vojvodina, in the north of Serbia, is special in this respect because the Hungarians living there have been able to acquire Hungarian – and thus EU – citizenship over the last decade. Partly based on this situation, the emigration of those living in Vojvodina accelerated, but those who stayed, especially the young generation, have strengthened their local identity. This means an identity which is primarily Vojvodina, secondarily Hungarian and thirdly Serbian. However, nationality is not always clear-cut, even in non-mixed families it is observed that one identity is sometimes stronger in individuals, while another is stronger at other times. Such divergence is particularly evident in sport, in the identity of supporters at international sporting events. This presentation aims to identify several fracture points where identity shifts, especially among young people? To answer this question, an interview survey was conducted with Hungarians under the age of 40 living in Hungary and Serbia.

Ahmed Bakry (p), Anna Growe

Gabor Lados

Cross-border regions (CBRs) have gained much attention recently; however, the relationship between the four factors of the national borders, existing common ethnicity and languages across the border, the cultural powers in such contexts, and the metropolitan functions and its process of agglomeration shadow or borrow size effects are still being problematic and underrepresented. This paper tried to deconstruct these relationships and complexities that existed in the CBRs. It measures only the cultural powers from the newer territorial and network perspectives using the TaN model for the cross-border cities in three CBRs in West Europe of the Basque, the Flemish, and the Upper Rhine regions. Each region represents a particular typology concerning a common or non-common language or ethnic background across the borders. The study offers a projection and comparison of the deduced cultural powers of the cross-border cities to the urban population sizes and the existing metropolitan function index developed by BBSR 2011. Through this projection, each city outside or inside the metropolitan regions at the CBRs can have a clear view of their agglomeration shadow or borrow size effects that may take place for the cultural activities. It can be found that both common language and ethnic backgrounds play a significant role in the cultural dynamics of the CBRs. Moreover, the cities outside the geography of the metropolitan region share a borrow size effect for the cultural activities, especially in the ethnic CBRs.