Work careers of Bulgarian migrants in the European Union

Abstract

After Bulgaria?s accession to the EU in 2007 increasing numbers of mobile workers have chosen emigration to the West as an attractive option for achieving a more satisfactory employment. The public debate in Bulgaria however perceives this mobility as a loss of human capital, while in the receiving countries in Western Europe immigrants are largely seen as a threat to the local labour markets. This paper builds upon 42 qualitative interviews conducted with Bulgarian labour migrants in four EU countries as part of the international project GEMM (2016- 2019). We selected interviewees with diverse education and qualifications achieved in the home and the destination country and explored their work trajectories and career aspirations. The analysis focuses on migrant capital accumulated, mobilized and negotiated in the host country and the subjective meanings attributed to the events in the life course. An important finding of the paper is that the interviewed migrants understand a successful work career to be something more than a rise in income or occupational hierarchy and associate it with a wider range of achievements: autonomy, self-reliance, learning. Often low-prestige jobs are not perceived as a failure, but rather as a new opportunity for development in personal, social and occupational terms. Migrants? work career is an essential part of their wider lived experiences.