Why do people come to Greece?

Back to: History and Background of Migration in Greece

Greece, at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, is not just a final destination for migrants from Asia and Africa but is seen as a gateway or stepping stone to Western Europe. Many came to escape turmoil and conflict in their homeland or for the economic opportunities afforded to them in Greece, a member of the EU with a large informal market.

Greece is a destination country primarily for migrants from the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and some Asian and African countries, and a transit country for Kurdish, Afghan, and other Asian migrants. The large majority of immigrants coming to Greece are from Albania, followed by Bulgarians, Georgians, Romanians, Russians, and Ukrainians.¹

Immigrants are employed in construction, industrial manufacturing, and agriculture. A high number of Filipino housekeepers also migrate to Greece. The income per capita in a large number of sending countries is less than US $1000. The majority of people who migrated to Greece in the 1990s did so for economic reasons. The younger migrant population’s inability to find jobs in their home country, combined with Greece’s need for cheap labour and ageing workforce, attracted many migrants to Greece during the 1990s.²

Civil and political unrest and armed conflicts in the Balkans region and the Middle East displaced a large number of people to Greece. War in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, civil war in Georgia and other countries in the early 1990s and 2000s, and war in Kosovo during the late 1990s, all displaced large waves of migrants who fled these countries, many of whom settled in Greece.³ Additionally, use of chemical weapons in Halabja, Iraq and the Gulf War in the early 1990s, escalation of violence in Turkey in the mid-90s, and conflict between Kurdish people in Northern Iraq and Turkey and the Saddam regime, displaced large numbers of people, who also sought refuge in Greece.⁴

Finally, as a result of the Syrian Civil War, since 2015 hundreds of thousands of refugees /asylum seekers arrived in Greece by sea.

Think of the factors influencing immigration to Greece. What makes people leave their countries (push factors)? What makes people seek their future in Greece/EU (pull factors)?

1. Antonopoulos, Georgios A., and John Winterdyk. „The Smuggling of Migrants in Greece An Examination of its Social Organization.“ European Journal of Criminology 3.4 (2006): 439-461
2. Baldwin-Edwards, Martin. „Southern European labour markets and immigration: A structural and functional analysis.“ Employment 2002 [in Greek]; in English, as MMO Working Paper 5, Panteion University, Athens, Greece (2002)
3. Antonopoulos, Georgios A., and John Winterdyk. „The Smuggling of Migrants in Greece An Examination of its Social Organization.“ European Journal of Criminology 3.4 (2006): 439-461
4. Papadopoulou, Aspasia. „Smuggling into Europe: transit migrants in Greece.“ Journal of Refugee Studies 17.2 (2004): 167–184