The Postwar Mobility Transition in Eastern Europe

Abstract

In this article we shall examine the decline of migration and its replacement by commuting in Eastern Europe specifically in the advanced industrial nations of the Soviet Union the German Democratic Republic Czechoslovakia Poland and Hungary. Since World War II these countries have experienced changes in mobility that are characteristic of the passage in Zelinskys model from the Early Transitional Society phase through Advanced Society phase and even exhibit elements in the attempts to control mobility of his Future Superadvanced Society. We however view the degree and rate of this transition as the result not of inexorable and universal process but of deliberate government interventions in the economies of the socialist nations. These interventions have severely affected the characteristics and consequences of the mobility transition resulting in distortions in Eastern European patterns that raise questions as to the wide applicability and utility of the mobility transition hypothesis. (excerpt)