ABSTRACT
The number of Romanian citizens who migrated abroad during recent decades is somewhere between three and three and a half million, and there is a general consensus that Romania is one of the main source countries in Europe when it comes to migration and the mobility of its citizens. This large population movement has had considerable social and economic effects both in Romania and in the host countries. This chapter focuses on social changes at the grass-root level in home communities. It examines the consequences of migration of Romanian Roma on local communities. The chapter also addresses the migration of the Romanian Roma as part of the post-1990 massive movement of Romanian citizens. More specifically, it argues that individual and structural push/pull-factors of migration and immediate effects and consequences of migration on Roma families and households are impressively diverse, and are reflective more of the local and regional socioeconomic contexts than of allegedly ethnic characteristics of particular households.
