Paper short abstract:

In Romania 96% of the population lives in a household owning their home, while non-officially 4 million Romanians are working abroad. A large percentage of them are guest workers, emigrants, who have flats, houses in Romania, but live in other countries, in rented homes. Where is their real home?

Paper long abstract:

At present around 70% of the population in the EU lives in a household owning their home, while the remaining 30% lives in rented housing. The highest shares of ownership were observed in Romania, where 96%. On the other hand, the non-official statistics say that more than 4 million Romanians are working, living abroad and around 100 000 children left home alone in Romania are waiting their return. Most of these guest workers, temporary emigrants want to return to their country. They earn money, they send it home to their relatives and they build a house in Romania. Usually they live abroad - in Spain, Italy, Germany - decades, they rent a flat or a house, they have a home, but actually they are waiting for the moment when they have enough money to return to their hometown, village, where is their real home. Parallel lives, parallel spaces, parallel homes. While in Western Europe these emigrant people, guest workers usually live in modern flats in the suburbs of cities, their dream is a traditional family house in hidden village - not rarely without electricity, piped water etc. They want to change their destiny, they go to "Europe" to gain money, but they don't use it to change, they use it to maintain the traditional life, lifestyle. Their house (or flat) in Romania is the fix point, is the basis. They live between two worlds.