Immigrants In Switzerland Research Articles

HIV Sexual Risk Behaviors and Intimate Relationships among Young Sub-Saharan African Immigrants in Switzerland: A Brief Report

Objectives: This study explores the intimate relationship context in which sub-Saharan young immigrants (18–25) adopt HIV sexual risk behaviors. Methods: Qualitative data from 37 in-depth semistructured interviews and two focus groups were analyzed through an inductive approach and constant comparative analyses. Results: HIV sexual risk behaviors occurred in four types of intimate relationships. However, reasons for taking risks varied by relationship type and also depended on material resources, as well as interactional, cultural, and social dimensions related to sexual socialization and migration. Conclusions: Findings support the importance of considering the intimate relationship context to understand how HIV sexual risk behaviors occur.

“The Way to School between Two Worlds”: Documenting the Knowledge of Second-Generation Immigrant Children in Switzerland, 1977–1983

In the late 1970s , the “second generation” took center stage in the ongoing public debates on immigration in Switzerland. This generation also took the lead in the first Swiss documentary film project on this topic, Unsere Eltern haben den Ausweis C (“Our Parents Have a Residence Permit”). This two-part cinematic portrait of “second-generation foreign children” in Switzerland was produced and directed by the Swiss filmmaker Eduard Winiger between 1977 and 1982. Each part was sixty-six minutes long. The first, “Schichtwechsel” (“Shift Change”), depicted the initial stages of immigration to Switzerland, the immigrant parents’ workplaces, and the strains of organizing preschool care for their children. The second part, “Schulweg zwischen zwei Welten” (“The Way to School between Two Worlds”), focused on the particular challenges that immigrant adolescents faced with regard to the life plans of their parents and the expectations of the host society, the latter represented by the school. Seen from an epistemological perspective, “The Way to School between Two Worlds” shows how three different dimensions ofmigrant knowledge intersected in the making of the second generation in Switzerland.

Primary Care Networks and Eritrean Immigrants' Experiences with Health Care Professionals in Switzerland: A Qualitative Approach.

Growing migration in European countries has simultaneously increased cultural diversity in health care. Migrants’ equal access to health care systems and migrant friendly health care have therefore become relevant topics. Findings gathered in recent years have mainly focussed on the perspective of care providers, whereas this study includes migrant perspectives. It explores the primary care network of Eritrean immigrants in Switzerland as well as their experiences of interacting with health professionals. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews with intercultural interpreters from Eritrea were conducted. On the basis of a thematic analysis, the study identified the important informal and formal contacts in these Eritrean immigrants’ primary care networks and the specific forms of support each actor provides. In this network, encounters with health professionals were predominately expressed positively. The main barriers reported were language difficulties and intercultural understanding. On the basis of the participants’ statements, six key lessons for practice have been derived. These lessons are specifically important for facilitating Eritrean immigrants’ access to the Swiss health care system. Nevertheless, they are also relevant for other groups of migrants in European countries.

A Point in the Heart: Concepts of Emotional Distress Among Albanian-Speaking Immigrants in Switzerland.

Cultural variability regarding concepts of distress for common mental disorders (CMD) has been reported extensively in cultural clinical psychology across the globe. However, little is known about illness narratives in social communities from Southeast Europe. The purpose of this paper is to identify cultural concepts of distress (CCDs) among Albanian-speaking immigrants in Switzerland and to integrate the findings into literature from other parts of the world. Twenty semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted using the Barts Explanatory Model Inventory (BEMI). A set of concepts was described through content analysis and semantic network analysis. The results show complex expressions of distress, which are mainly associated with post-migration living difficulties. Social problems and life-changing events mark the onset of the most common symptoms. Self-management and social support were described as the most important coping behaviors. Participants expressed trust in physical health care but little belief in psychotherapy. There is indication that mental illnesses are stigmatized in this population. It is therefore important to use non-stigmatizing terms in health communication. Moreover, individuals from this community consider suffering to be part of life, and they assume that this suffering must be endured with patience. It is vital to address these beliefs in psychological interventions.

Does Direct Democracy Hurt Immigrant Minorities? Evidence from Naturalization Decisions in Switzerland

AbstractDo minorities fare worse under direct democracy than under representative democracy? We provide new evidence by studying naturalization requests of immigrants in Switzerland that were typically decided with referendums in each municipality. Using panel data from about 1,400 municipalities for the 1991–2009 period, we exploit Federal Court rulings that forced municipalities to transfer the decisions to their elected municipality councils. We find that naturalization rates surged by about 60% once politicians rather than citizens began deciding on naturalization applications. Whereas voters in referendums face no cost of arbitrarily rejecting qualified applicants based on discriminatory preferences, politicians in the council are constrained to formally justify rejections and may be held accountable by judicial review. Consistent with this mechanism, the increase in naturalization rates caused by switching from direct to representative democracy is much stronger for more marginalized immigrant groups and in areas where voters are more xenophobic or where judicial review is more salient.

Exploring barriers to consistent condom use among sub-Saharan African young immigrants in Switzerland

ABSTRACTNo study to date has focused on barriers to condom use specifically among young immigrants to Europe from sub-Saharan Africa. Based on a qualitative study in sociology, this paper explores generational differences in barriers to condom use between first-generation immigrants (born in Africa and arrived in Switzerland after age 10) and second-generation immigrants (born in Switzerland to two native parents or arrived in Switzerland before age 10). Results are based on in-depth, semistructured individual interviews conducted with 47 young women and men aged 18 to 25 to understand how individual, relational, and cultural dimensions influence sexual socialization and practices. Six main barriers to consistent condom use were identified: reduced pleasure perception, commitment and trust, family-transmitted sexual norms and parental control, lack of accurate knowledge on HIV transmission, lack of awareness about HIV in Switzerland, and gender inequalities. The three first barriers concerned both generations of immigrants, whereas the three last revealed generational differences. These findings can help sexual health providers identify social causes for young sub-Saharan immigrants not using condoms. The findings also highlight the necessity of offering accurate, accessible, and adapted information to all young immigrants, as well as the particular importance of addressing families’ lack of discussions about sex, understanding the sexual norms transmitted by parents, and taking into consideration cultural differences among young people born in immigration countries.

Job-Related Well-Being of Immigrants

Considerable literature exists on the acculturation and adaptation of immigrants. For the most part, studies looked at their psychological and social adaptation to the host society in general. This study takes a step further, by looking into their working lives. The current paper presents a new perspective which regards job-related well-being and job satisfaction as indicators of psychological adaptation of immigrants. An investigation was conducted into the work-related well-being of Portuguese immigrants in Switzerland. The results show that on a whole Portuguese migrants working in Switzerland are satisfied with their jobs. Longer residential length was associated with higher workplace well-being. Job affective well-being and job satisfaction were predicted by sociocultural adaptation and satisfaction with migration life.

Skill Composition and Occupational Incorporation of Early and Recent Immigrants in Switzerland: the case of Italians and Spaniards

AbstractUsing the 1980 Census and 2010‐2011 Structural Survey, we compare the socio‐demographic profile and the occupational incorporation of Italian and Spanish immigrants arriving in Switzerland between 1976 and 1980 with those arriving during the second half of the 2000s. We find evidence that the traditional over‐representation of Italian and Spanish immigrants among the lower strata of the occupational hierarchy at the end of the guest worker period is explained by their negative selection in terms of education and host language proficiency, corroborating the human capital hypothesis. However, the results also show the persistence of occupational disadvantages for these immigrants after controlling for human capital characteristics, indicating the existence of segmentation dynamics in the Swiss labour market. In contrast, recent cohorts of immigrants from Italy and Spain have definitively joined the collective of highly skilled foreign workers correctly matched in the Swiss labour market in accordance with their positive skill‐selectivity.

The risk of female genital cutting in Europe: Comparing immigrant attitudes toward uncut girls with attitudes in a practicing country

Worldwide, an estimated 200million girls and women have been subjected to female genital cutting. Female genital cutting is defined as an intentional injury to the female genitalia without medical justification. The practice occurs in at least 29 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. In addition, globalization and migration have brought immigrants from countries where cutting is commonly practiced to countries where cutting is not traditionally practiced and may even be illegal. In countries receiving immigrants, governments and development agencies would like to know if girls with parents who immigrated from practicing countries are at risk of being cut. Risk assessments, for example, could help governments identify the need for programs promoting the abandonment of cutting among immigrants. Extrapolating from the prevalence and incidence rates in practicing countries, however, is generally not sufficient to guarantee a valid estimate of risk in immigrant populations. In particular, immigrants might differ from their counterparts in the country of origin in terms of attitudes toward female genital cutting. Attitudes can differ because migrants represent a special sample of people from the country of origin or because immigrants acculturate after arriving in a new country. To examine these possibilities, we used a fully anonymous, computerized task to elicit implicit attitudes toward female genital cutting among Sudanese immigrants living in Switzerland and Sudanese people in Sudan. Results show that Sudanese immigrants in Switzerland were significantly more positive about uncut girls than Sudanese in Sudan, and that selective migration out of Sudan likely contributed substantially to this difference. We conclude by suggesting how our method could potentially be coupled with recent efforts to refine extrapolation methods for estimating cutting risk among immigrant populations. More broadly, our results highlight the need to better understand how heterogeneous attitudes can affect the risk of cutting among immigrant communities and in countries of origin.

Emigration Patterns and Determinants of Children of Immigrants in Switzerland

Abstract Existing studies on emigration either focus on the first generation or the total migrant population. Analysing the Swiss context, this article explores the emigration patterns and determinants of children of immigrants in comparison with other subpopulations. We use original longitudinal data (obtained by linking the Structural Survey and the Population and Household Statistics) that provide information on emigration flows as well as on the migratory background. Results differ significantly according to the migratory status considered.

Acute Psychiatric Problems among Migrants Living in Switzerland- a Retrospective Study from a Swiss University Emergency Department

Background: Switzerland is a traditional immigration country with immigrants from both neighbouring, and less developed countries. Since the early 1990s, the migration rate has continuously increased and in 2013 almost a quarter of Swiss residents had an immigration background. Immigrants in Switzerland had fewer psychiatric hospitalisations, but more emergency and compulsory admissions than the local population. Therefore it is important to study the characteristics of the immigrant population presenting at the emergency department for mental health problems. Methods: Our retrospective data analysis included adult patients (age ≥ 16 years) admitted to our emergency department who consulted a psychiatrist, between 1st of January 2007 and 30th of October 2012. Results: Clinical data from a total of 1115 patients were available for analysis. Of these, 58.6% (n=654) were male and 41.4% (n=461) female. The mean age was 36.3 years, with a range of 16–85 years. The most common reason for psychiatric presentation to the emergency department was psychosis (n=227, 20.3%), followed by social problems with 18.2 % (n=203), auto-aggression with 16.4% (n=193) and 16.2% (n=181) suffering from depression. Conclusions: Translation services are very important. Therapy adherence programs for psychosis and autoaggression prevention programs are especially important for immigrants.

Seattle Sightings

Reviews 205 (268) de la superproduction américaine La grande évasion (Sturges, 1963). Les gags burlesques et l’insolence de Thibon,facteur des armées (CharlesAznavour) le distinguent du héros rebelle hollywoodien Captain Hilts (Steve McQueen). Robic-Diaz conclut avec des annexes riches en notices filmiques,une filmographie succincte (chronologique et par genre) et une impressionnante bibliographie classée par discipline. Une riche sélection d’images en couleurs s’échelonnant sur seize pages illustre un travail magistral sur les multiples enjeux de la représentation de cette guerre dans le cadre des théories postcoloniales. Huston-Tillotson University (TX) Anne Cirella-Urrutia Seattle Sightings: The Seattle International Film Festival, 2015. . Following last year’s fortieth anniversary euphoria, this year’s edition of the country’s “Most Attended Festival” offered a calmer experience. French-language cinema remained well represented among the 282 feature-length works screening; and several moved directly from SIFF to the commercial circuit, among them La French (Cédric Jimenez), Les combattants (Thomas Cailley), and Gemma Bovery (Anne Fontaine). Each of these pictures features an exceptionally strong performance by a lead player, Jean Dujardin, Adèle Haenel, and Fabrice Luchini, respectively. A number of Francophone works explored political, social, and economic issues which bedevil developing nations. Ousmane Sembène’s classic La noire de... (1966), in a restored copy, led this list. Morbayassa (Guinean Cheick Fantamady Camara), like Sembène’s film, focuses on women’s stories. Bella, prostitute for a vicious pimp in Dakar, manages to escape him and travels to Paris on a quest to locate the infant she was forced to abandon at age fifteen. The lost daughter has grown up as “Vanessa,” daughter of a well-to-do Parisian couple. The director thoughtfully examines the emotional and cultural challenges such situations (not uncommon today) can generate for all parties. Run opens on the assassination of a Prime Minister and then loops backwards into the young gunman’s life and the picaresque apprenticeships (to a rainmaker, a professional eater, and a gangster) from which he has run and which have shaped his life. A briskly-paced allegory, this debut feature from Ivorian Philippe Lacôte evokes the last twenty years of his country’s turbulent history. Debris from the 2012 earthquake in his native Haiti provided Raoul Peck both inspiration and a set for Meurtre à Pacot. Using melodrama as a vehicle, he dissects issues of class, sex, racial origin, and international aid in a society attempting to recover from catastrophe. Besides La French, SIFF programmed two other French crime-thrillers likewise based on real events in the 1970s—La prochaine fois je viserai le cœur (Cédric Anger) and La rançon de la gloire (Xavier Beauvois). Anger’s film follows the double life of a man who was simultaneously a gendarme assigned to apprehend a devious serial killer and the actual murderer himself. A bluish palette in a winter setting, a first-person point-of-view, scarce dialogue, and a terse, absolutely convincing stellar turn by Guillaume Canet create a killer’s portrait that succeeds precisely in its disconcerting impenetrability. Crime films usually contain answers at the end. Not so in Anger’s film. One leaves the auditorium both intrigued and haunted by the question of what made this man go on a killing spree. To the contrary, Beauvois’s picture provides a satisfying conclusion to the adventure of two down-on-their-luck immigrants in Switzerland who steal the body of Charlie Chaplin to solve their financial problems by demanding a ransom. Rich in humor (occasionally black) as well as suspense (as one might well expect from the presence of Benoît Poelvoorde and Roschdy Zem as the grave-robbers), this engaging movie also represents a homage to Chaplin’s genius (sustaining family tradition, son Eugene Chaplin and grand-daughter Dolores have small roles). International festivals provide opportunities to see the recent work of familiar performers who do not work in Hollywood. Two notable instances here: Jean Reno as a former hippy, now grandfather, growing olives in Rose Bosch’s sunny family drama Avis de mistral and Romain Duris in François Ozon’s thought-provoking Une nouvelle amie—both...

Social distance and wage inequalities for immigrants in Switzerland

This study investigates the impact of the social distance between immigrants and Swiss natives on wage inequalities. Social distance is assumed to be high when immigrants come from a different culture, a different education system and speak a different language. By combining these three aspects, this article goes beyond existing studies that only focus on cultural differences. The empirical findings indicate that, net of education, immigrants with a high or very high social distance from the receiving society are strongly disadvantaged in terms of their salaries. Additional analyses show that the impact of typical explanatory factors for labour market success such as education, citizenship and length of stay also vary by the degree of social distance between immigrants and their destination country. The analyses are based on data from the Swiss Labour Force Survey for the years 2010 and 2011, which allow for detailed analyses on individual immigrant groups due to oversampling.

The Big Five in Context: Personality, Diversity and Attitudes toward Equal Opportunities for Immigrants in Switzerland

AbstractThe paper analyzes the link between personality traits and attitudes of Swiss citizens toward equal opportunities for immigrants. In particular, we examine the extent to which this relationship is moderated by the socio‐structural context. We test the assumption that the direct links between personality traits and attitudes toward equal opportunities are strengthened by perceived ethnic diversity. Based on our empirical analyses, we are able to replicate central findings of the research on personality traits and attitudes toward immigrants for the Swiss context. While openness toward experience and agreeableness are positively related to a preference for equal opportunities, conscientiousness is negatively linked to these attitudes. Furthermore, our results reveal that the link between conscientiousness and attitudes toward equal opportunities is significantly moderated by the perceived share of foreigners in the neighborhood. This finding is especially relevant for future research on the effects of personality traits.

Entre retórica profranquista y xenofobia suiza: el populista James Schwarzenbach

Swiss journalist, writer, and politician James Schwarzenbach (1911-1994) is a controversial figure of Swiss 20th Century history. A fervid anti-Communist and Catholic, he fought in the 1960s and 70s for a massive reduction of immigrants living in Switzerland. Schwarzenbach was also a deep admirer of General Franco and built friendships with several important people of the Spanish regime. The present article aims to point out his Spanish passion and his contradiction between his admiration of a regime, which economically depended from the emigration of manpower, and Schwarzenbach’s policy against immigration in Switzerland.

What Actually Matters? Understanding Attitudes toward Immigration in Switzerland

AbstractOn 9 February 2014, the Swiss people accepted the popular initiative “against mass immigration” launched by the national‐conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP). This voting outcome has triggered wide‐ranging debates about both the policy on immigrants as well as the future of Switzerland within the European context. Against this background, we evaluate attitudes toward immigration in Switzerland. Using hitherto unexplored survey data of MOSAiCH, our empirical analyses show that already in the year 2013, before the debate about the initiative on mass immigration was in full swing, roughly 53 percent of the 1011 interviewed Swiss citizens stated that immigration should be reduced. Moreover, our estimations indicate that the threats and fears induced by immigration and the will to maintain sovereignty and autonomy are particularly relevant for attitudes toward immigration. By contrast, education and national or personal economic conditions are only weakly related to the immigration issue.

Imigracja w Szwajcarii po 1945 roku – ewolucja postaw społeczeństwa i federalna polityka integracji

The article discusses immigration in Switzerland after 1945: its dynamics and the policy of the federal government towards immigration and immigrants. An important issue addressed in the paper are relations between Helvetian Federation and European Union, especially with respect to bilateral agreements concerning free movement of people. The second part of the article is devoted to social attitudes towards immigration as well as the increasingly radical views of the right-wing groups, especially Swiss People’s Party (SVP, in French – Democratic Union of the Centre – UDC) on immigration, which is most vividly manifested in public initiatives submitted to popular vote. An analysis of the results of votes demonstrates that the attitudes of the Swiss public towards immigration are not uniform. Initiatives aimed at expelling immigrants from Switzerland are rejected, but so are proposals of laws which make obtaining Swiss citizenship easier. Furthermore, the author discusses the Federation’s immigrant integration policies, in which emphasis is put on integration on the job market or social integration, while completely ignoring political integration (granting civil rights). The final issue addressed in this paper is the analysis of a watershed in the history of immigration in Switzerland, namely the public vote of February 9th, 2014 “Against Mass Immigration” and its consequences. This has been discussed based on source texts (text of the public initiative and commentaries of politicians, sociologists and journalists).

Reaching out: Social Support and Mental Health Problems of Bosnian Immigrants in Switzerland

A state of well being in which one realizes own potentials, can cope with every day stressors, can work productively and is able to constructively contribute to community is called mental health. Many stressful and negative events can interfere with these abilities and thus endanger someone’s mental health. Migration is one of them. With its’ pre and post phases/stages, migration represents great sources of stress and stressors. Immigrants need good personal and social resource in order to lessen down negative effects of migration on their mental health. The aim of this study is to explore presence of mental health problems in non clinical population of Bosnian immigrants (N=101, F=48, M=53) in Switzerland. It was assumed that migration stress acts negatively on immigrant’s mental health. General health questionnaire was used to test this hypothesis. Participants mean score results on total GHQ28 questionnaire were M=51.06, S.D. =14.30, its subscales on depression M=10.12 S.D.=3.75, somatic complaints M=13.04 S.D.=4.5, anxiety/insomnia M=13.34 S.D. 4.8, and social dysfunction M=14.37 S.D.=3.5. This indicates presence of mental health problems among Bosnian immigrants. At the same time, the study shows presence of social support seeking (N=83 subjects listed family and friends) as primary coping strategy used by Bosnian immigrants while dealing with difficulties and problems rather than seeking professional help (N=3 subjects listed professional help seeking). Thus, social support seeking acts positively on mental health of Bosnian immigrants.

Taste differentiation and hierarchization within popular culture: The case of salsa music

This article investigates taste preferences for one popular music genre: salsa. It is based on in-depth interviews with 40 Latin American immigrants in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Eight recorded pieces of salsa that represent different salsa styles were played and respondents’ spontaneous appreciations were noted. The findings show a clear and fairly strong connection between taste preferences and status/class indicators, particularly education and to a lesser extent occupational status and social origins. High-status respondents prefer those pieces and styles classified as artistically worthwhile by professional experts in salsa music, whereas low-status respondents showed more appreciation for pieces and styles that experts classified as popular, commercial, and artistically inferior. Respondents also differed in their preferences for other musical genres, styles, and pieces as well as in the reasons they gave for their preferences. These results largely confirm Bourdieu's distinction theory for this specific ‘popular’ genre, and suggest that cultural ‘omnivorousness’ can coincide with status-related distinctions and exclusivity on the level of within-genre distinctions. The findings also show that respondents use salsa music as a resource to define and express their ‘Latin’ identity – thus illustrating both ‘bounding’ and ‘bridging’ mechanisms.

Health Status Inequality among Immigrants in Switzerland

Objective: To assess self-rated health and impairments for six large immigrant groups (Germany, Italy, Kosovo, Portugal, Serbia, Turkey) in Switzerland. Methods: We used population-based survey data from the Swiss Migrant Health Survey 2010 and the Swiss Health Survey 2007. The sample comprised permanent residents aged 17 - 64 years (n = 14,637). Multivariate logistic regressions have been used to estimate odds ratios (OR). Results: Ill health and activities of daily living (ADL) impairments were associated with older age in all groups. However, nationals from Turkey and nationals from Kosovo were substantially more likely than Swiss to report ill health (OR = 1.05; CI = 1.02 - 1.09; P = 0.001 and OR = 1.05; CI = 1.01 - 1.10; P = 0.016) and ADL impairments (OR = 1.06; CI = 1.03 - 1.09; P = 0.000 and OR = 1.04; CI = 1.01 - 1.07; P = 0.004) with increasing age. Furthermore, Portuguese women were more likely (OR = 2.65; CI = 1.40 - 5.03; P = 0.003) to report ill health than Swiss women. Conclusions: Immigrant-specific preventive and health promotion initiatives should target vulnerable immigrants from Turkey, Portugal, and Kosovo. Furthermore, groups with few economic and psychosocial resources in the general population of Switzerland should be more involved in interventions to reduce health risk.