Immigrant internal migration in a new destination country: Do immigrants suburbanise in Czechia and why?
Abstract
International migrants are often a major force reshaping settlement geography. However, their role in urbanisation processes has predominantly been explored in more established immigration countries, whereas such knowledge remains limited in Central and Eastern Europe.
This paper investigates trends in participation of different groups of foreign residents in urbanisation processes in Czechia, which has recently become a new immigration destination. Using a longitudinal dataset of the Czech migration registers (2005-2017), it assesses the extent of participation in urbanisation processes.
It also evaluates the strength of sociodemographic and place-based factors contributing to suburbanisation, a process which makes the Czech suburbs the settlement type with highest net migration and to which both the Czech majority and the immigrant population contribute. The paper finds similarities between the internal migration of different immigrant groups and that of the Czech majority, indicating the predominance of suburbanisation of affluence, notably in culturally and economically well-off groups.