Temporary Immigration and Regional Income Inequalities in Times of COVID-19. A Spatial Panel Data Analysis

Confronted with ageing and depopulation, Romania needs to identify the main factors that attract immigrant population. This paper tackles the matter of regional income disparities as a key factor for temporary immigration in Romania. The quantitative approach includes a spatial panel data analysis based on a dataset retrieved from the Romanian National Institute of Statistics and our data consists of 378 observations on 42 counties in Romania over a time span of nine years starting with the year 2012. Our findings suggest that temporary immigration in Romania is shaped by location, but does not follow the labour market characteristics. Higher salaries and job opportunities are not the main factors of attraction to temporary immigration and it does not seem to be influenced by regional disparities.