Different Groups Of Immigrants Research Articles

Immigrants' clusters and unequal access to healthcare treatments

We focus on caesarean sections (C-sections) to examine access to appropriate medical care for immigrants in the Italian tax-funded universal National Health Service. We use a detailed micro-dataset to analyse whether non-native women receive different treatments compared to natives and whether there are differences between groups of non-natives defined by citizenship. For identification, we control for hospital fixed effects and maternal characteristics, and we compare the different groups by exploiting the clustering of non-natives of different nationalities in different urban areas. We find no significant differences between natives and non-natives in terms of C-sections and inappropriate C-sections. However, we do find significant differences between different groups of immigrants. In addition, we find that linguistic and socio-cultural distances are significant drivers of inequalities among non-native women. As language, habits, traditions, and beliefs can affect communication between the woman and the medical staff in many ways, we interpret our findings in terms of the ability to process and understand information between the two parties. In support of this interpretation, we find evidence of a “segregation effect”: women linguistically and socio-culturally more distant from Italy experience the greatest difficulties in accessing appropriate care when living in urban areas characterized by the presence of large immigrant communities of the same nationality. Moreover, we find that the role of linguistic and socio-cultural barriers is stronger for first-time mothers and women with non-native partners.

Framing Different Groups of Immigrants in Central Europe Before and During the 2015–2017 EU Refugee Crisis

This article examines the media framing of immigrants around the 2015–2017 EU refugee crisis in two Central European countries, Czechia and Slovakia. Unlike most similar studies I investigate how framing varies regarding different migrant groups. Using quantitative content analysis, I show that security and cultural frames are most commonly employed while the opposite holds for the victimisation frame. Particular frames are, however, more frequently used to depict certain immigrants. Those with a Muslim background and/or from the Middle East or North Africa (MENA) are more often framed in security and cultural terms. The victimisation frame is employed more often regarding immigrants from MENA and the economic frame regarding Eastern Europeans.

Country of birth as a potential determinant of inadequate antenatal care use among women giving birth in Brussels. A cross-sectional study.

One of the mechanisms explaining perinatal health inequalities could be inadequate antenatal care among some immigrant groups. Few European studies compared antenatal care use between different groups of immigrants taking into account individual characteristics. This research investigates the associations of three birth regions with the use of antenatal care, by also considering socioeconomic and migration-related determinants. We included 879 mothers born in Belgium, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa, and interviewed them in four Brussels hospitals after they gave birth, using an adapted version of the Migrant-Friendly Maternity Care Questionnaire. We additionally collected clinical data from hospital records. We carried out descriptive analyses and ran univariate and multivariable logistic regression models to estimate the associations of socioeconomic and migration characteristics with a) late start of antenatal care and b) less than minimum recommended number of consultations. The vast majority of women in this study had adequate care in terms of timing (93.9%), frequency of consultations (82.2%), and self-reported access (95.9%). Region of birth was an independent risk factor for late initiation of care, but not for infrequent consultations. Women born in Sub-Saharan Africa were more prone to accessing care late (OR 3.3, 95%CI 1.5-7.7), but were not more at risk of infrequent consultations. Women born in North Africa, had similar adequacy of care compared to the Belgium-born population. The three groups also differed in terms of socioeconomic profiles and socioeconomic predictors of antenatal care use. Housing type, professional activity, and health insurance status were important predictors of both outcomes. This study showed that the region of birth was partly associated with adequacy of care, in terms of initiation, but not number of consultations. Further dimensions of adequacy of care (content, quality) should be studied in the future. Socioeconomic factors are also key determinants of antenatal care use.

The Porous Border Woven with Prejudices and Economic Interests. Polish Border Admission Practices in the Time of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely restricted global movement, thus affecting migration processes and immigrants themselves. The paper focuses on the evaluation of bordering procedures and practices introduced by the Polish government in the time of the pandemic. The aim is to highlight the duality in the admission processes at Polish borders between labour and forced migrants, which have been driven, as I argue, by economic interests and the xenophobic attitudes of the government. The paper is based on interviews with experts assisting migrants during the pandemic in Poland, whose direct contact with thousands of clients has allowed them to acquire broad knowledge of how the new legal provisions have affected different groups of immigrants. The data confirms that the Polish border is very porous. It has been almost completely closed to asylum seekers, especially those fleeing from Muslim countries, for whom the only option is to cross the border illegally. Only one exception was made for Belarusians, who were cordially welcomed at the border while escaping persecution in their home country in the wake of their protests against Lukashenko’s regime. Economic migrants, on the other hand, exist on the other side of the spectrum. For immigrant workers, borders have remained open throughout the whole pandemic. Moreover, some further measures facilitating their arrival were introduced, such as de facto lifting of quarantine for seasonal farm workers.

Strategies of communicating health-related risks to vulnerable groups of immigrants during a pandemic: a scoping review of qualitative and quantitative evidence

PurposeThe purpose of this rapid scoping review was to map existing literature on risk communication strategies implemented by authorities and aimed at vulnerable immigrants in the context of pandemics.Design/methodology/approachExisting literature on the topic was charted in terms of its nature and volume by summarizing evidence regarding the communication strategies. Literature searches were conducted in Academic Search Premier and CINAHL, databases were searched from 2011 to present on March 31, 2021.FindingsFive articles met the criteria and were included in this review, pointing at limited research in this area. The findings indicated that a close interaction between communication authorities and immigrants is important. Community education, building trust in communication sources, clear risk communication and inclusive decision-making among all were found to be important when communicating health risks to immigrants.Research limitations/implicationsThe primary limitation of this rapid scoping review is that the literature searches were conducted in only two databases, namely, Academic Search Premier and CINAHL. A wider search across several other databases could have given more profound results. Furthermore, some studies where immigrants were conceptualized as, for instance, “disadvantaged groups” might be overseen due to a choice of the search strategy used in this study. There are also certain limitations related to the studies included in this review.Practical implicationsIdentifying efficient ways of conveying recommendations may further assist authorities and scientists in developing more effective health-related risk communication.Originality/valueThis study covered health-related risk communication in the context of pandemics, addressing the need to investigate different groups of immigrants and the challenges related to communicating risks to these groups.

Neo-Republicanism and the Domination of Immigrants

Neo-republicanism seems well suited to provide insight into current policies for the control and restriction of immigration. In this paper, I discuss three different accounts of domination to assess whether they can provide intuitively acceptable responses to the types of domination experienced by different groups of immigrants. First, I present and criticize an argument offered by Philip Pettit in support of the view that immigration restrictions could in principle avoid being dominating. My criticism focuses on Pettit’s account of non-arbitrary governmental action that claims that laws and policies are not dominating when people have democratic control over the government’s activity. Given the failure of Pettit’s argument, I turn to the proceduralist account of non-arbitrary state action proposed by Frank Lovett, and discuss the limitations of the account in diagnosing all ways in which border controls and immigration policy can generate domination. Finally, I present and defend the view that governmental action is not dominating when there are adequate checks that protect the objective interests of individuals.

Why are so few Africans at work in Ireland? Immigration policy and labour market disadvantage

This paper explores why African immigrants have poor labour market outcomes in Ireland, with very low employment and exceptionally high unemployment rates. The analysis draws on the 2011 Census to examine outcomes for different groups of immigrants. Controlling for individual characteristics suggests that the labour market disadvantages suffered by Africans cannot be attributed to compositional differences: Africans in Ireland are a relatively well-educated group concentrated in the prime working-age groups. The paper investigates an alternative explanation that suggests that the African disadvantage may be due to the policy of excluding asylum seekers from the labour market. I create a novel measure of the risk of exposure to the Irish asylum system by expressing the number of asylum seekers in years prior to the 2011 Census as a proportion of the Irish-resident population from each country. This asylum risk variable is found to influence labour market outcomes, reducing employment and increasing unemployment chances. Moreover, its inclusion in the models also reduces the effects of African group membership. Even controlling for individual characteristics and risk of exposure to the asylum system, there remains a substantial residual African disadvantage in both employment and unemployment, which may be due to discriminatory practices by employers.

Activation Versus Forced Inactivity. Government, Civil Society and the Promotion of Self-Sufficiency of Asylum Seekers and Irregular Immigrants.

Different actors involved in the integration of immigrants into the host society have different ideas on who is allowed to integrate and when the integration process should start. This contribution asks how different actors in the Netherlands approach the issue of immigrant integration, which is to be understood here as the promotion of self-sufficiency of immigrants in the host society. More specifically, the article analyses to what extent the different actors aim at activating immigrants. We look at actors operating at three different levels: 1) central government, 2) the municipalities and 3) civil society, and two different groups of immigrants: 1) asylum seekers (either waiting for their procedure to start as well as those who are ‘in procedure’) and 2) irregular immigrants (focusing on rejected asylum seekers). We focus in particular on possibilities for employment, volunteer work and learning the Dutch language. By comparing the approaches taken by the different actors, we hope to provide insight into the question of how these actors interact when it comes to the integration of (rejected) asylum seekers, and to draw lessons from these insights.

The End of History: The Role of Immigrants in Kano Textile Industry

This paper sets out to present immigrants’ efforts and contributions in making Kano the largest textile trade entrepot and production centre. It covers the span of seven centuries from pre-colonial, colonial to post-colonial times. This paper argues that immigrants played a central role in the transformation of the Kano textile industry. The transformation of Kano from a tribal backwater to a remarkable textile hub was made possible through the assimilation and integration of different groups of immigrants. Importantly, it discusses the Chinese immigrants’ phenomena in the occupying Kano market, where they forcefully drew back the wheel of Kano textile growth to the disadvantage of the local economy with their competitive advantage. This paper concludes that exploitations by immigrants have changed the historical narratives of the Kano textile industry from one based on local economic growth to external power exploitation.

The problem of the settlement of the mountainous area of the Ukrainian Carpathians: contradictions of methodological approaches and interpretations

The most controversial questions in research of settlement problems of the Ukrainian Carpathians are settling time, the role of different migratory movements and ethnic composition of immigrants. Historical records show that until the XIII century there was not an overall network of settlements in the mountainous areas of the Ukrainian Carpathians. Nevertheless, on the eve of that time, the Ukrainians quite rapidly adjusted directly to the foothills, Transcarpathian ways, they created defensive points in the highlands and carried out various nature use. Considering the socio-economic and security needs of the population of ancient foothill areas main migratory movement coming from the plains to mountain rivers flow to their origins, including the territory of Transcarpathia and Carpathian and Volyn and Podillya. The similarity place names on both sides of the Carpathians Ukrainian Transcarpathian confirm the influence of colonization movements that have left their traces in the mountains. Various historical and ethnographic artifacts indicate an important role in the settlement of the Carpathian mountain region south of colonization, i.e. relocation to the region population from the territory on the border of the middle and lower Danube, historic Transylvania and Moldova during the XIII-XVI centuries, which in the Commonwealth and some other states politically identified as “land Wlachs”. The main component of ethnic-social colonization was humanity southern Slavic-Rusyn origin. Settling mountain areas of Ukrainian Carpathians influenced the formation of the social structure of Ukrainian society, particularly on the spread of Ukrainian gentry, which was originally founding villages and their families. Value of different groups of immigrants from the south, north, west and east, as well as instituting the characteristics of the traditional economy and traditional culture under various environmental conditions and led to the formation of ethnic groups of the Ukrainian Carpathians (Boyko, Lemko, Hutsuls). Key words: settlement of the Ukrainian Carpathians, South colonization, Ukrainian ethnographic groups, toponymy of the Ukrainian Carpathians, Transcarpathian relocation.

Trajectories of health-related quality of life in immigrants and non-immigrants in Germany: a population-based longitudinal study.

Due to a lack of longitudinal studies on health in immigrants, the purpose of the present study is to investigate trajectories of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in immigrants and non-immigrants in Germany by considering the impact of immigration-related factors. Based on longitudinal SOEP data from 2002 to 2012, the trajectories of the mental (MCS) and physical component (PCS) of HRQoL (assessed with SF-12v2) were analyzed in 8546 subjects, including 1064 immigrants by conducting hierarchical linear models. MCS remains stable over time, whereas PCS shows a decrease, influenced by increasing age. There were no differences between immigrants and non-immigrants concerning PCS trajectories as well as no influence of immigration-related factors on it. In contrast, MCS trajectories were influenced by immigration-related factors: 2nd-generation immigrants, participants from Turkey or Southern Europe and those who immigrated at young age show a slight decrease in MCS over time. The results show negative association between MCS and time in different groups of immigrants. Future research is needed for better conceptualization of the complex interplay between health and migration over time to identify subgroups at greater risk for mental distress.

Differences in welfare take-up between immigrants and natives – a microsimulation study

PurposeInternational empirical evidence suggests that immigrants have a significantly higher risk than their native counterparts of being on welfare due to their observed characteristics. Nevertheless, it remains unclear if immigrants are also more prone to take-up benefits, conditional on being eligible. The authors explicitly focus on this potential explanation for higher welfare take-up rates. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the take-up of social assistance in Germany by immigrants and natives, conditional on being eligible, and hence focus on take-up behavior rather than on determinants of eligibility.Design/methodology/approachTo simulate welfare entitlements, the authors employ a Tax-Transfer Microsimulation Model. It is a static microsimulation model that consists of a detailed implementation of the German tax and transfer system as well as an econometrically estimated labor supply model. After the simulation of welfare entitlements, the authors analyze take-up behavior within a discrete choice framework. The authors estimate probit models of observed welfare benefit take-up for the sample of eligible households taking into account unobserved heterogeneity.FindingsThe estimation results do not reveal a significant effect of being a migrant on the probability of taking-up entitlements. The authors found a significant negative effect for citizens from European countries on the take-up probability, which disappeared after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors find that it is worthwhile to focus on different groups of immigrants. Although not statistically significant, the rates of non-take-up of welfare benefits differ between different immigrant groups. The analysis further shows that controlling for unobserved heterogeneity is important when analyzing welfare differences between immigrants and natives.Practical implicationsThe higher welfare rates of immigrants are explained mainly by their higher risk of welfare dependence. Thus, given that reducing the welfare dependence of immigrants is a political goal, social policy measures to improve welfare recipients’ labor market prospects are contested. However, restricting eligibility rules to reduce entitlements does not seem to be the appropriate measure, because the take-up probability does not differ between immigrants and natives after controlling for individual characteristics.Originality/valueThe authors build on Castronova et al. (2001) and analyze the take-up behavior of individuals who are entitled to basic means-tested welfare benefits for employable persons in Germany. The analysis differs from Castronova et al. (2001) in four points. First, the authors provide first evidence of immigrant-native differences in welfare benefit take-up under the new welfare system in Germany after its reorganization in 2005. Second, the authors apply a microsimulation model of the comlete tax and transfer system in Germany to determine welfare eligibility. Third, the authors extend the analysis to a panel framework and take into account individual unobserved heterogeneity. Fourth, the authors distinguish between different groups of immigrants.

Native-immigrant wage differentials in Greece: discrimination and assimilation

ABSTRACTThis article applies the Blinder–Oaxaca methodology in order to dissect the average earnings differentials between Greek workers and three different groups of immigrants into a part attributed to differences in characteristics and a part due to discrimination. It also seeks to identify the effect of assimilation (i.e. postmigration human capital) on immigrants’ earnings. We use information about 8429 individuals, of which 1185 are immigrants. The data are drawn from the Greek Labour Force Survey (2009). Our results suggest that discrimination is significantly higher for immigrants originating from non-EU countries than it is for EU foreigners, while it is negative for those who terminated education in Greece. Also, there is evidence that (i) post-migration human capital is a significant determinant of immigrants earnings, (ii) there is limited transferability of skills between sending countries and Greece and (iii) education is the main determinant of the wage gap between natives and immigrants.

The Problems of Assessing Transnational Mobility: Identifying Latent Groups of Immigrants in Germany Using Factor Mixture Analysis

This paper explores immigrants’ transnational mobility in Germany. It uses data of the Socio-Economic Panel Study and four indicators regarding frequency, length, and total duration of visits to the country of origin. The study applies factor mixture analyses in order to investigate whether (a) the observed indicators refer to a uniform underlying construct of transnational mobility and (b) the relationship between the latent construct and the observed indicators establishes in a uniform manner for all respondents. The most reliable model distinguishes three latent classes of immigrants, thus indicating no uniform underlying construct of transnational mobility. Theoretically consistent findings could be derived for about 58 % of the 4019 respondents. However, the relation between the observed indicators and the latent variable diverges substantially for the remaining 42 %. Thus, the findings indicate that the commonly applied indicator of return visits largely fails to assess transnational mobility. Rather, different groups of immigrants engage very diversely in visits to the country of origin. The findings stimulate a variety of conceptual problems future theoretical and empirical research needs to tackle.

Slovene as the second/foreign language in Slovene pre-school institutions

Slovenia has long been a place for immigration; with the accession into the European Union it has become even more interesting for different groups of immigrants from European and non-European countries. According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 106.486 foreigners (5.16% of overall population in Slovenia) were living in Slovenia at the end of 2015. It is expected that this migration trend in the light of world events continues or even increases. One of the key factors for the successful integration of young generations of migrants in society is education. The survey Index of the policy of integration of migrants (MIPEX, 2015), implemented by the British Council and Migration Policy Group, shows that few education systems in Europe are adapting to the realities of immigration. Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Canada, Portugal are the most engaged countries, whereas Slovenia is among the least committed (it ranks 28 among 38 selected countries). Language has a major role in supporting children’s process of identity formation and in helping them understand where they fit in the new environment they are entering. Language is, of course, not the only factor that promotes integration and enables successful education, but the fact remains that immigrant pupils are better achievers in those countries that pay greater attention to second/foreign language learning starting in preschool institutions. In the present paper we discuss the Slovene pre-school teachers’ and pre-school teacher assistants' attitudes towards learning Slovene as the second/foreign language in Slovene pre-school institutions. The research was conducted on a sample of 143 pre-school teachers and pre-school teacher assistants. The results imply that Slovene pre-school teachers and pre-school teacher assistants hold positive attitudes towards learning Slovene as a second/foreign language, they see their role as the promoters of learning Slovene as a second/foreign language to non-Slovene children, but they strongly express the lack of training in language learning strategies of Slovene as a second/foreign language. Keywords: Slovene, second/foreign language, preschool institutions, pre-school teacher and pre-school teacher assistant

Identifying local determinants of destination choices of international immigrants to the Madrid metropolitan area

AbstractWe examine the local determinants of destination choices of foreign immigrants to the Madrid metro area using data for 2005 and 2009 from the Spanish annual municipal‐level registers of inhabitants. Taking advantage of the equivalence relation between conditional logit and Poisson, we estimate a location‐choice model using the Poisson fixed‐effects estimator. Origin‐destination fixed effects are incorporated to account for the persistent spatial structure of the immigrants' settlement patterns and to control for potential violations of the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) assumption. The Poisson regression model is estimated for seven different groups of immigrants according to world regions or countries of origin. Our modelling strategy has important empirical implications, with magnitudes and/or signs of the estimated coefficients changing in the expected directions. It is found that newly arriving immigrants tend to settle in low‐to‐middle‐income locations in the suburban reaches of the Madrid metro area. Moreover, the effects of the size of local communities of established immigrants are found to be insignificant and even negative in several instances, reflecting hetero‐local settlement preferences and/or the saturation of local networks causing in‐group job rivalry, respectively.

Experiências nas escolas étnicas rurais no Sul de Santa Catarina no contexto do processo de nacionalização do ensino

It is the schools “Núcleo Hercílio Luz” and “Casimir Stachurski” maintained initially by nuclei of Italian and Polish immigrants, respectively. In the 1930s these institutions were made by state government and, later, in the 1990s, the municipal government. When studying the histories of these two schools, we seek primarily to understand the experiences of the subjects - male and female students - in the process of nationalization of education, from teaching practices that have been established there and articulated. The research occurred from documentary sources and oral sources. The oral documents, produced from interviews with former students, were constructed using the methodology of oral history. In principle, the classes took place in homes or places assigned by the residents themselves. The teaching staff consisted of teachers, ie those that dominated the reading and writing in the language of immigrants and taught their sons and daughters. With the nationalization process of teaching, mainly in the New State Government Vargas, teachers were dismissed and replaced by teachers who spoke and taught in Portuguese. These schools harbored different experiences, marked by the cultures of the different groups of immigrants, but also rebuilt cultures within and outside the school environment.

MEDIA DISCOURSE OF THE MIGRATION PROCESS IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERACTION BETWEEN THE HOST AND THE IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES

Migration is an objective process that promotes the global development and integration. At the same time, migration contains a lot of contradictions, the chief being the problem of social inclusion of one group and exclusion of another. Thus, migration is a process that has a strong potential for conflict. According to the classical sociological theories immigrant has to integrate into the local culture to become part of the host community. The new paradigm of research considers migration as social process that does not imply integration of immigrants into the local culture, but tolerate the variety of results of the migration process. Such a change is not possible at the society where xenophobia is spread and immigrants are perceived as a "threat". Native population need to be adapted to the potential pluralism of interaction models with different groups of immigrants. Modern mass media play a key role in this process. Media construct images of social groups and thus influence the formation of tolerant or intolerant attitudes in the society. On the basis of data of sociological research (content-analyses, survey, focus groups) there are two discourse models of the migration process in mass media: the model of migration crisis (subjects of discourse are locals, journalists and authorities) and the model of pragmatic tolerance (subjects of discourse are employers and authorities). Both models are based on the classical sociological tradition (integration as only one result of the migration process). Modern methodological approaches that suggest the development of international migration systems and transnational activity are not represented on information and social spaces. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-11-1

Fragmenting citizenship: dynamics of cooperation and conflict in France's immigrant rights movement

This paper examines the contradictory relational dynamics of immigrant rights movement through a close examination of the French case during the 1990s. Through this movement, we find a network made up of different groups of immigrants and well-established rights organizations. As the movement intensified over the months, powerful cleavages developed between groups of undocumented immigrants (e.g. families, single men, etc.) and between certain immigrants and rights organizations. The same discursive and political structures that precipitated the cooperation of these diverse actors were also responsible for planting seeds of conflict by presenting different groups of migrants with unequal opportunities and placing resource-rich associations in a powerful position in the network. The paper concludes by discussing how the theory developed here can be ‘extended’ to analyse the relational dynamics found in similar social movements in other countries (e.g. USA).

Immigrants’ health protection: political, institutional and social perspectives at international and Italian level

The issue of “immigrants’ health” has been the subject of increasing interest in recent years, both in scientific literature and in the declarations of international health institutions. Specifically, the Resolution of the 61st World Health Assembly (2008), and the Report of the European Parliament on the reduction of the inequalities in health within EU (2010) are worth highlighting. There is a clear convergence in the orientations recommended to local Governments regarding the health policies and interventions to be adopted in this sector.It may be stated that the health policies adopted in Italy in the 1980s have been pioneering in both European and international contexts. Enhanced by the unconditional recognition of the right to health, which is stated in the Italian Constitution, these orientations have been strongly suggested to the policy-makers through effective lobbying efforts.Alongside ethical-legal recognition of the right to healthcare, the technical-scientific debate has also developed, especially following the publication of the WHO Report “Closing the gap in a generation” (2008).This has enabled the acknowledgement of the relevant role played by the socio-economic conditions which distinguish the different groups of immigrants. Moreover, the proposal of inter-sectorial policies and of an approach aimed at the empowerment of the community has become increasingly significant. In future, health protection for immigrants will be not only a priority as imposed by the recognition of health as a human right, but will also be more closely connected to capacities for the planning and support, at local level, of health promotion initiatives.