By Rinus Penninx, Emeritus Professor in Migration and Ethnic Studies of the University of Amsterdam, founder of the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES, 1993) at the University of Amsterdam, and founder of IMISCOE (2004).
The significance of international migration and migrant workers
International migrants are defined as persons who move away from their place of usual residence across an international border, temporarily or permanently (Batalova, 2022: 1). Such international migration has gained importance “in a globalising world of demographic and economic inequalities drawn closer together by revolutions in communications and transportations” (Martin, 2019, 213). The number of international migrants rose from 75 million (or 2,5 % of the world’s population) in 1960 to 280.6 million in 2020, representing 3.6 percent of the world’s 7.8 billion people (Batalova, 2022: 2; IOM, 2019: 21).
Migrants move across political borders for different reasons: to make a living elsewhere, to study, to enjoy retirement, to join family, or to find a safe haven. Though motivations are often mixed, states use rather specific labels (such as economic and family migrants, students, refugees) under which foreigners are allowed to enter the country and to reside there. International migration data are predominantly based on registrations of states and therefore reflect the entrance labels of states rather than the motivations of migrants.
There is consensus, however, that a great majority of international migrants are actually workers: the International Labour Organisation estimated that of the 232 million international migrants worldwide in 2013, 150 million were economic migrants: that is 65 %. Almost half (48.5 per cent) of them are concentrated in two broad sub-regions, Northern America and Northern, Southern and Western Europe (ILO, 2015: XII).
Two perspectives on Migration and Employment
In the scientific literature, we find two fundamentally different perspectives on the relation between Migration and Employment. The first one can be called migration for employment. This perspective focuses on individuals who migrate primarily for work to another country. If the aim and motivation of individual migrants (to work abroad) is met by a demand for workers in a destination country, then the two necessary conditions are present to speak of labour migration in the literature.
A second perspective, the employment for immigrants perspective, looks at all immigrants and how they fare on the labour market. This includes migrant workers, but also those who have been admitted on other grounds than labour market considerations, such as refugees, family members, marriage partners or students. In the latter cases, finding a job in the new country is a crucial first step to find an independent place in that new society. This different start on the labour market may have consequences for the development of work careers.
Migration for employment
The key questions of studying migration for employment are how such migration comes into existence, how it becomes organized and develops, and who are the significant actors in this process. The answers to these questions vary significantly in time and space. Sometimes (or in a certain phase) migration for work seems primarily driven by migrants who “spontaneously” (i.e without explicit invitation) move to places where they expect or hope to find work. In other cases, employers are the initiators by inviting or recruiting migrant workers. In both cases, networks of migrants and intermediaries emerge as liaisons between demand and offer. This may lead on the meso-level to organised forms of labour migration in which commercial agencies become the dominant link (Martin, 2017). If states involve themselves in organising and controlling such migration for work, and when employers, trade unions and intermediaries (are forced to) cooperate in this, organised labour migration programmes may come into existence. These are often specific in terms of sectors for which workers are recruited, such as agriculture, in terms of the qualifications of workers, such as nurses, doctors versus unskilled workers, and in terms of labour conditions, such as the duration of the work contract. Organised labour migration may become so large-scale, covering several countries of origin and destination, that the literature speaks of labour migration systems, such as the guest worker system in Northwest Europe between 1955 and 1974 (Marino et al., 2017; Oso et al., 2022; Penninx & Roosblad, 2000; Penninx, 2018).
There is a vast literature on policies of receiving countries that try to regulate entrance and exit of foreign (labour) migrants, their rights of residence and work, their conditions of stay and work and their access to facilities of the welfare state. The first type of such studies focusses on the definitions and instruments used in immigration policies: who is subject of these policies and on what grounds can or should foreigners in general, and migrant workers in particular, be admitted? How are the guiding principles of admission – international obligations, economic interests of the country, and humanitarian considerations – used in practice? And what if migrants do not (want to) fit into the control system (Berntsen 2016; Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas, 2020; Ruhs, 2019)?
The second type of studies of policies is explanatory, trying to answer the question which factors determine formal policies of admission and exit, the practical outcomes of these policies, and the gaps between official policies and actual outcomes? This literature on the political economy of labour migration analyses the role of societal stakeholders (employers, trade unions, migrants) and particularly the role of the state. One stream of political economists sees migration policies essentially as the outcome of the relative power of organised interests in society. It is the intensity of costs and benefits of migration that motivate groups to organise in favour or against. Policy makers of the state are seen as brokers that mollify these interests (Freeman, 1995). Such a model “explains” the liberal immigration policies for cheap labour in industrialised countries: the benefits for employers and migrants are strong, while the costs (e.g. for native workers) are diffuse.
Another stream of political economists attributes a much more central role to the state and its bureaucratic apparatus and agencies. The latter tend to protect its citizens’ privileged access to welfare, or socio-cultural stability. That explains the generally restrictionist bent of political discourse on migration issues in democratic welfare states (Hollifield, 1992). At the same time, however, liberal institutions have an inclusionary influence on (the practice of) integration policies. Non-discrimination and other universalistic principles in law, the inclusionary and non-discriminatory logic of welfare service institutions, and the idiom of service professionals may successfully counteract the restrictionist bent of national policies from within, while international relations and institutions may counteract from outside. The key phrases in this stream are “liberal constraints” for the regulation of migration and “the liberal paradox” (in which economic liberalism contradicts political liberalism of giving rights to migrant workers).
The studies just mentioned focus on the question whether and how (prolonged) migration leads to more rights and equality for migrants in democratic welfare states, but one can also ask the question whether labour migration programmes that give more rights to migrants lead to smaller numbers of migrants (because the state sets stronger conditions for admission to prevent societal costs), and vice versa: programs that do not grant much rights lead to higher numbers of migrants (because less societal costs are expected). This is called the numbers versus rights thesis, or “the price of rights” (Garcés-Mascareñas, 2012; Ruhs 2013). This approach is part of the burgeoning literature on how to manage temporary labour migration programs orderly and to the benefit of all parties concerned (Fanning and Piper 2021; Jones, 2022).
Employment for immigrants
There is a broad consensus in the literature that the domain of labour and income is a crucial part of the integration process of newcomers in a society (Bommes and Kolb, 2006; Neergaard 2009). So crucial questions of analytical approaches of integration can be applied to that specific domain (for a heuristic model see: Penninx & Garcés-Mascareñas 2016: 11-29). Key in that approach is that integration processes of migrants in the labour market are seen as the outcome of interaction between immigrants and the receiving society. Integration outcomes are explained, on the one hand, by specific human resources and individual characteristics and behavior of migrants, and, on the other hand, by mechanisms in the labour market that set specific rules for categories of workers, such as restrictions or extra opportunities, or by discrimination (i.e. applying the rules differently for individuals and groups on grounds that are not relevant for a decision).
For workers, getting a job and keeping it is key. Access to the labour market is thus the first issue to study. After successful entrance follows the question how individual workers do land and move in the hierarchical structure of the labour market. On the micro-level of individuals, the question is whether personal characteristics, education, skills, and experience of (candidate) employees match the demands of employers. In practice, also the mechanisms used in this process of matching do determine the outcome: recruitment and selection procedures at the entrance of the labour market; personnel and promotion policies when it comes to develop one’s position on the labour market. On the meso-level of firms and the macro-level of national labour markets the question how and to what extent such processes are regulated and controlled is crucial. Employers and workers, intermediaries, trade unions and the state as facilitator, legislator and supervisor do play an important role in this regulation and co-determine the outcomes.
These mechanisms and actors are relevant for native workers as well as for migrant workers, but do they work in the same way for both and are the outcomes equal? On the descriptive level of outcomes, the literature is clear on two points (Bevelander and Irastorza, 2020; Dustmann et al., 2017; Kogan et al., 2011; Zimmermann and Constant, 2004). The first is that migrants as a category have lower outcomes (and are thus treated differently) than natives with the same relevant qualifications (recognition of qualifications, particularly educational and professional ones, is a basic problem for migrants). The second is that within the category of immigrants recruited workers experience different problems and trajectories in the labour market than immigrants who arrived as family member or refugee. The former has no problems of access to the labour market, but may have significant problems in later phases, e.g. if their work was assumed to be temporary. The latter do have significant problems of access. Particularly the time between arrival and starting work is in general very long for refugees, the local language is often a problem and qualifications of immigrants are often not recognised.
Explaining differential labour market outcomes for individuals and categories has several variants in the disciplines of labour market sociology, in the (political) economy of the labour market and in the study of industrial relations. An elaborate explanatory tradition is the human capital or resource theory (Becker, 1964; Borjas, 2014) that assumes that people’s life chances depend on their human capital and that people invest in their own capital. This approach attributes differences in labour market outcomes to economic, social and cultural capital and characteristics of individuals to fit into the structure and mechanisms of the labour market that are taken for granted.
Alternatively differential outcomes at the individual and group level maybe explained by differential treatment of immigrants by existing institutions, organisations and individual actors on the labour market. In this approach the characteristics and efforts of individuals are given; the differential treatment may be based on a different legal status and attached rights or on differential treatment by labour market institutions, by actors such as employers, trade unions, and by co-workers. Such differential treatment by these institutional, collective and individual actors may be motivated by perceptions of social and cultural difference. Discriminatory action may follow from such perceptions.
We also find theoretical approaches on the macro level that focus on migrants’ collective incorporation in the social hierarchy of the labour market. Some of these emphasize the structural subordinate position of migrants in the labour market using the concept of (ethnic) underclass (Massey and Denton, 1993). Others point to mechanisms in the labour market that allocate migrants systematically to specific segments characterised by the lowest conditions of work and pay (Piore, 1979).
The literature on labour market integration policies is abundant. In terms of framing and content three different approaches can be distinguished. In the first approach equal rights/ equal access to the labour market for legally residing immigrants is the basic principle, aimed at guaranteeing that migrants are not formally or informally excluded when accessing the labour market. Such exclusion may be by law, e.g. when family members of migrant workers are not allowed to work, due to practical barriers, e.g. when migrants cannot fulfil certain conditions, or through discriminatory action. The second approach is equal availability and use of services and facilities when employed. The third approach refers to policies that aim for equal outcomes (employment equity policies), using instruments of preferential treatment and redistribution to correct inequalities at the group level (Kraal et al., 2009; Wrench et al., 1999).
Note
If you have comments on, or additions to this concise description of the IILME domain of research please react to this blog by sending your reflections to [email protected] and we will add them as comments to this blog. Such a “discussion” on the IILME domain of research may lead later to a revised, more complete and shared description of our field of study.
References
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