ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts that the future of external migration, as well as the evolution of its meaning, will be determined above all by a transformation of social mobility spaces. It argues that the development of social networks by Ukrainian migrants has taken place independently from the underlying causes of migration, notably high unemployment and low wage-levels at home, which have contributed to the mass exodus of labour migrants in the 1990s and still remain in force. The research documented below indicates that Ukrainian migrant workers have developed strategies that enable them to efficiently react to changing conditions within national labour markets and legal environments abroad. Ukrainian migration to EU countries is characterised by a gradual transition of migration patterns: 'shuttle' migration to neighbouring countries has increasingly been replaced by extended stays in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal and, beyond, by transnational migration.
