Approaching the accession of the East Central European countries to the EU more and more experts attempt to estimate the likely migration potential of the transition countries. The results of available reasearch demonstrates that we cannot expect substantial immigration from Hungary to the EU.

The paper is based upon a survey in 1998, and it shows a significant difference in the migration potential of women in different countries. The main motivation for migration is the presence of friends in other countries. Unemployment particularly encourages women to migrate. The article was first published in Ost-West Gegeninformationen.

Germany has become one of the major target zone of international migration, without having experience or significant tradition in this filed. This happened in a period when the scale of migration has become much greater than before due to the economic and social crises in the Third World and East Europe.

Thousands of foreign guest-workers are working in the state of Israel: men and women, young and old, families and singles. They came from Asia,Africa and Eastern Europe to escape the unsustainable conditions and to improve their living conditions.

Today, great sectors of the Israeli economy almost exclusively rely on guest-workers. Their proportion is higher than in the countries of Europe, with the exception of Switzerland. These people lack social rights and their conditions have negative impact on the Israeli citizens working in the same industries.