Life-Course Strategies and Labor Migration: Ukrainians in Italy and Poland

Current labor migration from post-Soviet Ukraine to the European Union' countries is characterized by significant scale and intensity, innovative character, diversity and unexpectedness of life collisions. Among all the EU countries, Italy and Poland emerge as a new migration space for labor migrants from post-Soviet Ukraine. The purpose of this paper is to examine post-Soviet Ukrainian labor emigrants to Italy and Poland and to reveal their strategies of adaptation their individual life paths to the new environment. It is identified and discussed the relationship between life course strategies and their realization via international labor migration during the last decade of the 20th century. The research paper proposes highly relevant life strategy models of Ukrainians based on the study of intentions, means and results of life strategy implementation as well as of values, target orientations and the rationality of life strategy choice by migrants. The study is based on the qualitative research conducted during 2009-2011, using the method of discourse analysis of transcripts and "thick descriptions" of in-depth interviews with Ukrainian labor migrants in Italy and Poland. The following strategy models were analyzed: a strategy of achievement and a survival strategy. The empirically based analysis gave evidence concerning an ambivalent life strategy models widespread among the Ukrainian labor migrants, which can be defined as either a strategy of achievement or survival strateg