ABSTRACT
This chapter links the lack of labor protests in the depressed economic and social situation of crisis-engulfed Estonia to the availability of an external outlet: emigration. Emigration is capable of rendering workers more active in seeking their rights and able to raise their voices when returning back to their home country. To understand the currents of migration and labor markets properly, Albert O. Hirschman's (1970) theoretical framework of exit, voice, and loyalty adds a new dimension to the scrutiny of social and political conditions. The economic turmoil due to the austerity measures introduced to respond to the financial crisis has had a long-lasting and disastrous impact on social conditions of Estonia. The massive out-migration, combined with the deteriorated conditions of living and labor, can partially be regarded as a consequence of policies aimed at retaining peg to euro which in strict economic terms at least have succeeded.
