Working-Class Migrants: Are they Motivated by Higher Social Wages and/or a Better Lifestyle?

The article uses the concepts of social wage and lifestyle migration to discuss the motivators of working-class migrants from Estonia to Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden). The present research challenges the long-standing tradition of depicting working-class migrants as strict income-maximizers, who are merely motivated by obtaining higher wages, regardless of the broader aspects of social well-being (including public welfare) and of lifestyle. Our analysis indicated that working-class migrants possess hybrid motivation for migration: their motivators are connected with social wages as well as lifestyle but in different degrees. Both quantitative data and interview data show that distinguishing different types of migration is problematic and, as suggested, we should move from differentiating between lifestyle and welfare migrants to talking about lifestyle and welfare in migration. The article is based on data from survey ‘Estonians in Finland 2019’ as well as 30 interviews with Estonian migrants in Sweden and Finland.