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Файл:Управление миграционными процессами в трудовой сфере. Учебно-методическое пособие
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Over-qualification of migrant workers
This is viewed as a significant issue in most receiving countries, but
there are differences between northern and southern Europe. The
Mediterranean countries are more likely to employ lower-skilled migrant
workers than the northern European countries.
Oddly, the over-qualification rate in Spain is much higher than in any
other Mediterranean country, at 24.2%. However, the report’s authors
indicate that this is due to a methodological problem, insofar as equivalent
academic qualifications and credentials are not always recorded in the same
way in the country of origin and the host country and are thus difficult to
compare.
Migrant workers who attained academic qualifications in their country
of origin often end up doing low-paid insecure jobs in the majority of
European countries.
Self-employment
Although the number of self-employed migrant workers has increased
steadily in recent years, this should not be interpreted exclusively as a sign
that immigrants are showing greater entrepreneurship, as some studies
suggest. On the contrary, it is in fact also the result of businesses adopting a
strategy of flexibility and decentralisation, as in the UK, or simply a survival
strategy adopted by immigrants confronted with a lack of other job
opportunities in what is frequently a hostile labour market. The
selfemployment rates for migrant workers indicate that considerable
numbers of immigrants either choose to work for themselves or have no
choice but to do so. In Switzerland, the percentage of selfemployed migrant
workers is 17.5%, while it is 13.7% in Sweden, 11.2% in France, 10.9% in
the UK and 10.3% in Germany.
At the same time, self-employment as a percentage of total
employment is growing both among native-born and foreignborn workers.
According to OECD (2006) figures, countries with particularly high
percentages include the Czech Republic (24.3%), the UK (15%), Greece
(14.2%), Portugal (13.8%) and Spain (12.5%).
Atypical employment contracts
Temporary contracts are one of the forms of employment contract
where migrant workers are most over-represented. According to Ambrosini
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and Barone, the main reasons for immigrants’ higher exposure to temporary
jobs are as follows: • Work permits in countries such as Belgium, Cyprus
and Hungary are of limited duration. • Some countries, for example Italy,
Austria and Spain, implement seasonal recruitment policies in certain sectors
such as agriculture. • Temporary contracts are particularly widespread in
certain public sector jobs in Finland, for example. • In the UK, Sweden and
Spain, there are temporary work agencies that specialise in recruiting
migrant workers.
There is a striking difference in the proportion of native-born and
migrant workers in temporary employment. In Spain, for example, while the
temporary employment rate for the working population as a whole is 33%,
the rate for migrant workers is 59%. In Finland, the temporary employment
rate for Finnish nationals is 16%, compared with 31% for Russian
immigrants and 54% for Somalis. Meanwhile, it is common practice in
Sweden for migrant workers to be recruited through temporary employment
agencies.
Native-born women are over-represented in part-time work, and the
same applies to migrant women. On the whole, part-time jobs are more
common among migrant women in countries where native-born women also
work part-time more often, such as the Netherlands and the UK.
Wages
All the reports of the EIRO network’s national centres conclude that
migrant workers’ wages are lower than those of nationals. This can be put
down to the simple fact that migrant workers are over-represented in lowskilled, low-productivity and low-paid sectors where insecure jobs are
prevalent. A further factor is that the average age of migrant workers is
lower than nationals, meaning that they enjoy fewer salary benefits.
As a result, there are certain methodological difficulties in obtaining a
true picture of the extent of wage discrimination. Put another way, the wage
differences resulting from the huge number of migrant workers in low-paid
insecure jobs are not necessarily a reflection of wage discrimination,
although they undoubtedly do reflect discrimination in access to
employment.
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Exposure to occupational hazards
There is a direct correlation between the kind of sectors where migrant
workers tend to be employed and the fact that they are more at risk from
workplace accidents and exposure to occupational hazards than native-born
workers. Some 30% of migrant workers in Austria are affected by accidents
in the workplace, compared with only 13% of Austrian nationals. Several of
the national reports indicate that migrant workers are also more likely to be
the victims of intimidation and sexual harassment than nativeborn workers.
Unionisation
Union membership levels among migrant workers are also determined
by the fact that they tend to be employed in the secondary segment of the
labour market, where union density is lower. Agriculture and household
services, for example, are sectors where trade union membership is very low
among nationals as well as migrant workers.
On the other hand, in traditional industrial sectors with high union
membership levels, migrant workers are also likely to join the union, as seen
in Italy, for example. Migrant workers initially tend to organise themselves
into ethnic, linguistic or cultural groups, and it is these groups that then join
a trade union.
Conclusion
This report draws attention to the growing importance of immigration
in the 27 EU Member States. It concludes with a mixture of criticism and
optimism. On the critical side, it points to the disadvantages experienced by
migrant workers with regard to their working conditions. However it also
sounds an optimistic note by highlighting positive signals of an improving
labour market integration of migrants. For example, there is a demand for
highly skilled migrant workers in Norway, Sweden and the UK. In
conclusion, this report provides a descriptive overview of the conditions
experienced by migrant workers in the 27 EU Member States.
Translation from the Spanish by Joaquín Blasco
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New challenges of transnationalism in the study of migration
Sònia Parella and Leonardo Cavalcanti
(Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 2008 14: 717, DOI:
10.1177/102425890801400420. The full version of this article can be found at:
http://trs.sagepub.com/content/14/4/717)
The International Symposium held to explore the ‘new challenges of
transnationalism in the study of migration’ was organised in accordance with
the wish of GEDINE (Immigration and Ethnic Minorities Study Group of the
Sociology Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona – UAB)
to take advantage of the synergies created by its research projects – over its
two decades of existence – in order to examine in greater depth an issue that
has been current and highly topical in academic debate since the 1990s,
namely, the transnational perspective in the study of migration. This is an
aspect referred to by both politicians and social scientists, and one on which
numerous workshops and conferences have been held, books and articles
published, etc. There is indeed an increasing consensus among researchers in
recognizing that both the first and subsequent generations of migrants
remain, in some cases, strongly influenced by permanent links with their
country of origin or by social networks extending beyond national frontiers.
The existence of this phenomenon constitutes a crucial dimension for
understanding and analysing contemporary migration, its strength, its
influence and its impact.
One of the most frequent and deeply rooted images of immigration
corresponds to the first historical phases of migratory movements, based on
the figures of emigrants who arrive in a new country in order to settle, set up
a new home and forge new connections such that links with the country of
origin diminish and gradually fade. These binary conceptions are no longer
appropriate, however, for gaining a picture of current international migration
in all its complexity, for, at the present time, migrants develop networks,
activities, lifestyles or ideologies that encompass the societies from which
they have come as well as those to which they have moved. This fact causes
new immigrant profiles to emerge, requiring new conceptualisations.
In considering current international migration it is impossible to
disregard the transnational factor. The transnational perspective refers us to
the increasing intensity of multi-directional flows of persons, objects,
information and symbols. Transnational practices show us how migrants
build and rebuild their lives in a manner whereby roots and connections are
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simultaneously developed and maintained in more than one society. Within
the framework based on such linkages, immigrants, in their daily activities,
develop new experiences and new fields of social relations. Examination of
these transnational practices enables researchers to move beyond the
conventional theoretical approximations which take a unidirectional view of
migration and which reflect the false premise that immigrants and their
descendants necessarily break off their relations and links with their societies
of origin.
The transnational perspective applied to contemporary migration is an
emerging field of study still awaiting consolidation of a well-defined
epistemological and methodological framework of its own. Not all migrants
necessarily find themselves involved in social practices of a transnational
nature. It is thus appropriate to ask whether all migrants and their
descendants do in fact develop transnational practices and to what extent
many of the transnational links that can be perceived to exist exert real
effects in all the various spheres of their lives. A concern for scientific rigour
is thus likely to force recognition that not all migrants see themselves as
involved in social practices that are transnational in character. The term
transnational is accordingly not synonymous with international, cross-border
or multinational. Were it to be used in this way, it would become a trivial
concept devoid of heuristic or analytical value. For all these reasons, this
symposium sought to move away from generic use of the transnational
perspective, which creates theoretical pleonasms and generates confusion
through reiterated use of definitions with little theoretical content and scant
analytical utility. The symposium contents were thus designed to facilitate –
on the basis of a rigorous and precisely honed delimitation of the concept of
transnationalism – reflection on the economic, political, cultural, and social
practices, among others, carried out by migrants in a habitual and continuous
manner acrossnational borders.
If what we understand by transnationalism is the establishment of links
of various kinds between the place of origin or reference and the place of
arrival or settlement, then it is indeed true that transnational practices have
always been, to a greater or lesser extent, present in migratory movements.
This observation notwithstanding, it is equally true that these practices were
in the past somewhat exceptional, affecting a very small group of persons,
while there can be no doubt that, at the present time, the transnational links
have been subject to accelerated multiplication and diversification. This has
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happened as a result, among other things, of the development of new
technologies in the field of transport and communication. Technology
represents a definite watershed in the configuration of transnational networks
and links and in their varying forms of impact, as well as in the tension
between the local and the global dimension. The current features of
transnationalism are peculiar to a specific period characterized by
technological advances, the evolution of the world economy and the range of
strategies and responses available to individuals and groups. Accordingly,
the innovative character of transnationalism lies less in the qualitative aspect
of the types of links encountered than in their extreme intensity, in the new
forms of transaction that have arisen, and in the multiplication of activities
and practices requiring contacts over and beyond frontiers.
Although transnational practices among migrants are not new, the
present time is characterised by an accelerated multiplication and
diversification of what have come to be known as ‘transnational social
fields’. Research in the social sciences does not sufficiently succeed – on
account of the limitations, both economic and methodological, of many of
our projects – in capturing the pace and speed at which migrants construct
and define multi-local transnational social processes and spaces that affect
both emigrants and their counterparts who have remained in the countries of
origin. This phenomenon gives rise to the need to create fora for debate, such
as this symposium, which help to spread the available theoretical knowledge
and to exchange empirical findings as well as tentative methodological
developments. These fora may contribute to a more effective understanding
and observation of contemporary migratory flows.
To this end, we were extremely fortunate that two pioneering
researchers in the transnational perspective, namely, Nina Glick Schiller
(University of New Hampshire) and Alejandro Portes (Princeton University),
were able and willing to attend our symposium.
Nina Glick Schiller is undoubtedly one of the major exponents of the
transnational perspective. Among the many definitions of the concept of
transnationalism, one of the most well-received in the scientific literature has
been her proposal (coauthored by Back and Szanton) in 1992 which defines
it as follows:
We have defined transnationalism as the process by which immigrants
build social fields that link together their country of origin and their country
of settlement. Immigrants who build such social fields are designated
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‘transmigrants’. Transmigrants develop and maintain multiple relations –
familial, economic, social, organisational, religious and political – that span
borders. Transmigrants take actions, make decisions, and feel concerns, and
develop identities within social networks that connect them to two or more
societies simultaneously. (Glick Schiller et al. 1992: 1-2)
In accordance with Nina Glick Schiller’s theses, the transnational
social fields render obsolete the scientific and political categories based on
considerations of territoriality, as well as the hegemonic categories relating
identity that fail to take account of the fact that connections are fluid, plural,
contextual and liable to change. The reality of the transnational phenomenon
is such that individuals’ practices and identities are simultaneously rooted in
more than one social field, spanning frontiers, an observation that calls for a
reconceptualisation of the physical space in which social phenomena occur.
The work of Nina Glick Schiller explains, from a basically
anthropological stance, the causes and consequences of transnational
migration, and conceives of transnationalism as a reconstruction of
capitalism which reconfigures the contemporary organisation of power and
identity. This is the case insofar as transnational migration is necessarily
connected to the changing conditions of global capitalism and must be
analysed within the context of the global relations between capital and
labour. Insofar as she also pays particular attention to the concepts of local,
national, regional and global, Nina Glick Schiller reminds us that to tackle
international migration from the transnational perspective requires a
transcending of ‘methodological nationalism’, in other words, of the
assumption that the nation state is the unit of analysis par excellence, the
natural and logical container within which social processes occur.
The key contributions of Alejandro Portes, meanwhile, enable the
growth and extent of the phenomenon to be established, and its main roots to
be explored. Together with L. E. Guarnizo and P. Landolt (1999), Portes
delimits the phenomenon of transnationalism and identifies the preconditions
for its emergence. From the work of this researcher it becomes clear that not
all migrants necessarily find themselves involved in social practices that are
transnational in character. He adopts a critical stance concerning the
frequently vague manner in which the term transnational is used – and also
the redundant nature of the term ‘transmigrant’ – in both theoretical and
empirical contributions as synonymous with international, crossborder or
multinational. This spurious use of terms turns them into trivial adjectives,
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devoid of heuristic or analytical capacity, that are used to explain occasional
links, displaying no continuity, of some immigrants with their countries of
origin, such as, for example, sending presents to relatives, using an Internet
café, or buying a house in the country of origin. Portes argues that three
preconditions are necessary for an activity to be justifiably regarded as
transnational:
• The process must involve a significant proportion of persons in the
sphere in question (in this case, immigrants and their counterparts in the
countries of origin)
• The practices under study may not be ephemeral, transitional or
exceptional but must display some degree of stability and resistance over
time
• The content of these practices must not be able to be captured by
means of other pre-existing concepts since this would mean that the creation
and use of a new term would be redundant and hence unnecessary.
In addition to benefiting from the presence of Nina Glick Schiller and
Alejandro Portes as keynote speakers, the symposium brought together other
experts of established international repute. The various scientific
contributions to the symposium were arranged according to a twofold
structure, namely, presentations and communications. The presentations,
organized in the form of a round table, were offered in two separate sessions.
The first, moderated by Aldela Ros (lecturer at the Universitat Oberta de
Catalunya), consistedof work that was of interest from a conceptual and
epistemological angle:
• Cristina Rocha (University of Western Sydney) – ‘South-South
Connections: Living between Australia and Brazil’
• Giulia Sinatti (University of Milano- Bicocca) – ‘Migrations,
transnationalism and the locus of research: multi-locality and the shift from
‘sites’ to “fields”’
• Cristina Blanco (University of the Basque Region) –
‘Transnationalism: emergence and foundations of a new migratory
perspective’
• Liliana Suárez (Autonomous University of Madrid) ‘Transnational
citizenship? Belonging and enjoyment of rights in transnational migratory
fields’.
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The second round table, moderated by Àngels Pascual de Sans,
Professor of Geography at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, focused
on empirical contributions examining the transnational perspective. The
following presentations were given:
• Lorenzo Cachón (Chairman of the Forum for Social Integration of
Immigrants at the Complutense University, Madrid) – ‘Integration of
immigrants in transnational contexts’
• Sonia Parella and Leonardo Cavalcanti (Autonomous University of
Barcelona) – ‘Assessment of links affecting care management in Latin
American transnational families in Spain’
• Ofelia Woo (University of Guadalajara, Mexico) ‘Migration of
women in a transnational context. The case of Mexican women in the United
States’
• Claudia Pedone (Institut d’Infància i Món Urbà) – ‘Transnational
motherhood between Latin America and Spain: the impact of migratory
policies in family reunification strategies’.
The second form of presentation consisted of communications. All of a
high scientific standard, these covered a wide range of subjects. The
communications – the result of a call for papers – had been subjected to
rigorous selection by the symposium’s scientific committee. Of some 100
papers submitted, 60 were presented, their authors being lecturers,
researchers, doctoral students and other experts in the field of
transnationalism from Europe (Spain, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy,
Portugal), America (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, United States,
Mexico, Peru), Asia (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan), Africa (Morocco,
Senegal) and Australia. Such a broad panorama is ample evidence that
transnationalism constitutes a wellestablished perspective within the
international academic community.
Apart from the indisputably international nature of the event, the
symposium was the outcome of a clear intention to achieve an
interdisciplinary gathering within the social sciences. It was attended by
sociologists, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, geographers,
historians, psychologists, educationalists and representatives of other
disciplines. It could not have been otherwise, for transnationalism is a
phenomenon configured on the basis of movements of persons across space
that is geographical but not only geographical, being also social, political,
economic or cultural, to mention only some of its aspects.
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The communications presented, on a wide range of topics, were
distributed among different working groups. Some of the communications
related to the methodological, theoretical and epistemological challenges
posed by the transnational perspective. Communications on labour market
issues and transnational employment were presented in specific working
groups. Other contributions were intended to discuss distance care
management (the transnational family) and its impact on gender relations.
Codevelopment was another topic discussed, together with the analysis of
transnational practices regarded from a political standpoint. Finally, a set of
case studies of various transnational communities was examined.
Representatives of the bodies that cooperated in organising the
symposium addressed participants at the official opening: Bernardo Santos e
Sousa represented the High Commissioner for Immigration and Intercultural
Dialogue (ACIDI) for Portugal. The Secretariat for Immigration of the
Catalonia Generalitat was represented by its Secretary Oriol Amorós i
March. The Spanish Permanent Observatory on Immigration (OPI) was
represented by its director Montserrat López Cobo and the Autonomous
University of Barcelona by the director of its Sociology Department Antonio
Martín Artiles. Lastly, Carlota Solé Puig, Sociology Professor at the
Autonomous University of Barcelona and director of the GEDIME directed
the event as a whole, introducing the keynote speakers and coordinating the
opening and closing ceremonies.
Further information can be found on the symposium website:
http://gedime.wordpress.com/ Translation from the Spanish by Kathleen
Llanwarne
References
Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch and C. Szanton-Blanc (1992) ‘Towards a
Definition of Transnationalism. Introductory Remarks and Research
Questions’, in N. Glick Schiller, L. Basch and C. Szanton-Blanc (eds.)
Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity
and Nationalism Reconsidered, New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Portes, A., L. Guarnizo and P. Landolt (1999) ‘The Study of
Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field’,
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22 (2), 217-237.
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