Immigrants Research Articles

Impact of Immigration Policies on Economic Growth in Germany

Purpose: To aim of the study was to analyze the impact of immigration policies on economic growth in Germany. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: Germany's immigration policies have had a significant impact on its economic growth. These policies have facilitated the influx of skilled labor, which has helped to address the country's demographic challenges, particularly the aging population and labor shortages in key sectors. Immigrants have contributed to the labor market by filling both high-skilled and low-skilled jobs, boosting productivity and innovation. Additionally, immigration has increased consumer demand, further stimulating economic growth. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Human capital theory, dual labor market theory & endogenous growth theory may be used to anchor future studies on the impact of immigration policies on economic growth in Germany. Implement comprehensive language and vocational training programs for refugees and low-skilled immigrants to facilitate their economic integration and productivity. Formulate balanced immigration policies that address sector-specific labor demands without disadvantaging native workers.

The Relationship between Trade Openness and Economic Growth in Laos: Evidence from ARDL Bounds Testing Approach

The relationship between trade openness and economic growth, both theoretical and empirical investigations have shown varied results. Broadly speaking, trade openness has both positive and negative impacts on the economy in three major ways: (1) by increasing competition, (2) by increasing export opportunities, and (3) by lowering production costs due to cheaper imported inputs. This paper applies the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to investigate the relationship between trade openness and economic growth in Laos during the period 1990 to 2018. The empirical results show that in the long run trade openness has positive effects on economic growth in Laos. However, in the short run, no positive influence has been observed in economic growth. Other variables such as foreign direct investment, human capital, and labor force also have positive effects on economic growth in the long run. There is only inflation has a negative impact on economic growth in both the short and long run. Laos is a middle-income nation in ASEAN, and thus the government of Laos must enhance trade openness by effectively controlling import levels in order to boost economic growth through international trade.

Mexican sending region and workplace experience: A preliminary study of agricultural guestworkers in Ohio

This article shares the results of a 2022 survey of male, Mexican H-2A workers in Ohio (n = 267). We describe the demographic profile of this population, including age, years of experience in the program, education level, marital status, and Mexican sending state. We then examine the relationship between sending regions of Mexico and certain workplace outcomes, specifically likelihood of working for a foreign labor contrac­tor, subsector of H-2A labor, and risk of being charged to participate in the program. Findings include a higher risk of predatory recruitment prac­tices for men from Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero, and a funneling effect towards agriculture (as op­posed to nurseries) for those same states. Intended as exploratory research, the results lay the ground­work for similar projects in other states and suggest a place-based approach for developing improve­ments to the H-2A program.

Assessing the impact of free trade agreement (FTA) signing on China’s outbound labor services

This study utilizes panel data encompassing 164 countries to analyze China’s foreign labor export from 2008 to 2017. Employing the multi-period double-difference method, the research investigates the impact of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signings on China’s labor export. Empirical findings reveal the following insights:The signing of FTAs significantly enhances China’s foreign labor export, demonstrating a temporal effect. Importantly, this conclusion withstands rigorous testing through various robustness checks. FTAs have a positive impact on China’s labor export to developing countries but do not exhibit a similar effect on developed countries. The impact of FTAs on labor export is pronounced in contractual engineering scenarios, while no discernible effect is observed in China’s labor cooperation. Through a meticulous examination of specific WTO+ and WTO-X provisions, the study underscores that it is primarily the WTO+ provisions that drive China’s foreign labor export. Consequently, strategic recommendations are proposed. These include fostering additional FTAs between China and developing nations, prioritizing labor export within contracted projects, encouraging expansion of Chinese labor export enterprises into new markets, promoting multi-party cooperation to facilitate overseas labor export, diligent consideration of existing FTA provisions, and exploration of transitioning from WTO+ to WTO-X provisions.

Constructing disposable farmworkers: Interrogating narrative and legal contours of the US racial capitalist state

In this paper, I draw on feminist narrative analysis to reconsider the exceptional character of agriculture under the law and its embodied consequences for contemporary agricultural guestworkers in Georgia, USA. Through engaged participant observation alongside farmworker advocates and archival research of legal texts, I consider the interplay between the law and everyday narratives in (re)constructing the racialized agricultural labor system. I interrogate a century of immigration laws, labor laws, and foreign labor schemes and examine how systems of selective inclusion play out on the ground. My analysis is informed by a theoretical framework that asserts that the US racial capitalist state developed in tandem with conceptions linking territory, whiteness, and the virtues of agriculture. Merging literatures on racial capitalism and the racial state, political geographies of immigration, and agricultural exceptionalism, this paper advances an understanding of the importance of interrogating the farm labor system to illuminate key mechanisms of exclusion characteristic of the US racial capitalist state. I argue that the state's construction of “disposable” farmworkers exposes the extent to which the racial capitalist state acts to discipline labor and uphold racialized hierarchies of “American” identity.

Two gender systems in a bilingual mind: A study of gender assignment in code-switched Russian-Hebrew adjective-noun phrases

Russian and Hebrew bilingualism offers a unique opportunity to study gender assignment in code-switched adjective-noun phrases, as both languages mark grammatical gender. The present study investigated code-switched Russian-Hebrew adjective-noun phrases in order to trace gender assignment strategies: default, translation equivalent, shape-based, and insertion. For this purpose, 60 Russian-Hebrew bilingual speakers were recruited and divided into two groups: heritage language (HL) speakers of Russian dominant in Hebrew and immigrant (IMM) speakers dominant in Russian. Participants filled out a background questionnaire and completed an experimental task in which they were asked to listen to and rate the acceptability of sentences with embedded Hebrew code-switched nouns within Russian matrix sentences. The results demonstrated that most participants in the study exhibited a clear preference for two gender assignment strategies: shape-based and insertion. However, rating for opaque Hebrew nouns differed between the HL and IMM groups, pointing to the role of language proficiency in the gender assignment strategy preference: the HL group favored the insertion strategy, while the IMM group showed a preference for the shape-based strategy. The current study adds to the existing literature on gender assignment strategies in code-switched adjective-noun phrases and the mechanisms driving the choices of the speakers.

Immigration, legal status and fiscal impact

We develop a general equilibrium model with search frictions in the labor market, wage bargaining and a welfare state, to study the impact of immigrants on the fiscal balance and welfare of natives in the host country. We distinguish immigrants by legal status and account for both their direct fiscal effects, through their tax contributions and transfer receipts, and their indirect fiscal and welfare effects, through their labor-market impact. We calibrate the model to the U.S. economy and find that legal immigrants reduce the tax burden on natives and increase natives' welfare, mainly because their tax contributions greatly exceed the transfers they receive. On the other hand, illegal immigrants' positive welfare impact stems mainly from their positive effect on job creation, which increases income to natives and in turn consumption. A legalization program leads to a fiscal gain, increases natives' welfare and is more beneficial to natives than a purely restrictive immigration policy that reduces the illegal immigrant population.

How Does Legal Status Inform Immigrant Agency During Encounters of Workplace Incivility?

How Does Legal Status Inform Immigrant Agency During Encounters of Workplace Incivility?

“I Have Been Getting Involved for My Children:” An Un/documented Latina Mother’s Immigrant Rights Practice as Family Engagement

This study examines the immigrant rights practices of one un/documented Latina mother who organizes with her children for immigrant rights in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Findings show the ways she conceptualizes her immigrant rights organizing as parental engagement in her children’s education. Implications highlight the need for education practitioners/scholars to include community organizing in their understanding of what counts as family/parental engagement in/out of schools, and to work with immigrant families as practice, policy, and research partners.

The Toxic Mix of Multiculturalism and Medicine: The Credentialing and Professional-Entry Experience for Persons of African Descent

This essay is based on a case study of international medical graduates (IMGs) in Canada who migrated from sub-Saharan Africa. The chapter examines how narratives of race are situated and deployed in the field of medicine and can produce some aversive social–psychological landscapes in the credentialing and the professional-entry process as it relates to persons of African descent. It will show that, often without predetermination or intent, professionals of African descent in Canada are highly susceptible to implicit racial associations and implicit racial stereotyping in relation to evaluations of character, credentials, and culture. The article exposes some of the critical intersections of common experience, such as: (a) cultural deficit bias—Whiteness as an institutionalized cultural capital attribute; (b) confirmation bias—reaching a negative conclusion and working backwards to find evidence to support it; (c) repurposed sub-Saharan Blackness stereotypes—binary forms of techno-scamming and fraud; and (d) biased deception judgement—where the accuracy of deception judgements deteriorates when made across cultures. These social psychological phenomena result in significantly disproportionate returns on their foreign education and labour market experience for Black medical professionals that require decisive efforts in changing the narratives.

Multiliteracy as human capital in first-generation adult immigrants in Germany

ABSTRACT In the present study, we combined the Focus on Multilingualism approach with the human capital theory to investigate multilingual profiles among first-generation adult immigrants in Germany and the relationship between immigrants’ multiliteracy and their employment status. We used data representative for Germany on the self-reported literacy skills in the majority, heritage, and foreign languages of first-generation immigrants (n = 451, age 18–64) gathered in the LEO 2018 study. To analyze multilingual literacy skills, we estimated adults’ multilingual profiles using LCA. In a second step, we conducted logistic regression models with multiliteracy and employment status. We found two multilingual profiles of first-generation immigrants: a profile with higher and a profile with lower literacy skills in all investigated languages. The profiles differed by the level of adults’ literacy skills in all investigated languages and showed a unique non-overlapping language ordering pattern. The results gained from the logistic regressions revealed that multiliteracy in first-generation immigrants may represent human capital in Germany. After controlling for additional variables (age, gender, education), the analysis showed that higher multiliteracy increases the probability of adult immigrants’ employment. Furthermore, our findings indicated independent positive effects of literacy in each language in multilingual repertoires on employment probability.

Economic impact and food security effects of trade disruptions in agricultural products for Sweden

The COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conditions in 2022–2023 highlighted the vulnerabilities of food supply chains to trade disruptions in agricultural inputs and foods, with the ensuing economic effects on producers and consumers. This study calculated the impact of various disruptions in the trade of agricultural inputs and outputs for Swedish producers and consumers and for food security. To this end, a mathematical programming model of the food sector with a spatial dimension was applied, which accounts for adjustments and interactions between producers and consumers of food. Food security is measured in terms of the self-sufficiency ratio, the ability to produce minimum dietary needs, and economic access for low-income households. The trade scenarios included disruptions to imports of agricultural inputs (fertilisers, fuel, feed, pesticides and foreign labour) and foods. The results showed that the economic effects for producers can be considerable, with a reduction in producer surplus by up to 75%. The decrease in consumer surplus is smaller, amounting to a maximum decrease of 21%. The self-sufficiency ratio and the ability to produce minimum dietary needs can be reduced by 55% and 61%, respectively, but may rise if the disruption to feed imports increases. Economic access to foods is slightly decreased in all scenarios. These results showing different impacts of trade disruptions on producers and consumers and food security metrics highlight the need to undertake extensive assessments to determine whether and how to prevent and mitigate their effects. The economic effects on producers and consumers and the associated impacts on food security are likely to differ, which affects the selection and targeting of policies, such as compensation for economic losses and promotion of food security.

The living conditions of foreign workers: a field study in Erbil city.

The Kurdistan Region is in the stage of economic development in various sectors, and sometimes economic development requires labor. Allowing and bringing foreign labor depends partly on how much the local labor fulfills the needs of the Kurdistan Region, bringing foreign workers sometimes is discussed as critical by the authorities, despite the lack of employment and local labor, but it is allowed to bring foreign labor, foreign workers have a number of social dimensions, which may affect their living conditions. This study aims to determine the living conditions of foreign workers in Erbil. The research method is quantitative method through the use of questionnaire tool, (381) foreign workers in male and female gender were taken as the study’s sample. Then analyzing the data with the use of the program (SPSS), we came to the conclusion that foreign workers in Erbil feel comfortable and safe, cultural differences have not become a problem and obstacle in front of them regarding religion and food, and they quickly adapt to the culture of Kurdistan Region. Foreign workers are more likely to have no social security and have been asked for inappropriate work, The male faces more social, psychological, healthy, economical, and legal problems than the female. Finally, some suggestion and recommendation have been presented to the related parties and the researches that will be done after this research.

The Restructuring Righteous Foreign Worker Regulations: The Challenge of Enormous Influx of Foreign Workers

Foreign workers are needed to overcome the challenge of a shortage of professional workers. However, the ineffectiveness of foreign worker licensing regulations in Indonesia hampers the supply of qualified foreign workers and impacts regional levy revenues. This research aims to structure the rules for the fair use of foreign workers. This is normative juridical research with conceptual, statutory, and comparative approaches. The results of a comparison of foreign worker regulations in Indonesia and Singapore are used to develop a regulatory concept that is more responsive to the use of foreign workers, especially in the health sector. The idea of licensing law and justice theory is used for analysis. The research results show that the regulations on using foreign workers in Indonesia are not yet comprehensive regarding the rules for qualifying foreign workers as a condition for issuing permits and justifying good public services. The issuance of permits to use foreign workers has been hampered because several regions do not yet have implementing regulations that impact the collection of regional levies. Second, setting up mechanisms for utilizing foreign workers in Singapore is relatively easy and successful with strict digital-based permit requirements. Thus, Indonesia needs to adopt a foreign labor policy system with strict requirements for issuing permits that are accessible in terms of bureaucracy, changes to laws, implementation of regulations, and drafting of regional regulations.

Coerced return: formal policies, informal practices and migrants’ navigation

ABSTRACT This article raises two questions: (1) how do formal policies and informal practices intersect in coercing returns of migrants without legal immigration status, refused asylum seekers and those unlikely to get asylum? (2) how do migrants at risk of return navigate the coercion they are exposed to? Focusing on the entanglement of formal and informal practices, we develop a typology of involuntary returns, distinguishing among pushing, imposing, and incentivising policies and practices. This typology invites us to see nuances in the forced and voluntary return dichotomy because coercive practices of implementation are embedded in all these types, but the level of coercion varies in different situations. The paper also investigates how migrants exercise agency by contesting/resisting or complying with the return procedures. The article contributes to the scholarship on returns by unpacking formal and informal policy and practice dynamics and migrant agency. Empirically, the paper is based on observations and documentation of practices derived from field research and 97 interviews conducted with returnees from EU countries and Turkey to Albania, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan between 2018 and 2023.

The Relationship Between Topics, Negativity, and User Engagement in Election Campaigns on Facebook

Negativity is a common feature of current online political communication during elections. Previous studies on negativity and its impact on user engagement focused mainly on Western European countries. Considering the political particularities of the Central and Eastern European countries, the present study focused on Czechia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldova, and Romania, where national election campaigns took place from 2020 to 2022. We aimed to investigate comparatively different topics prevalent in the negative messages and look at users’ engagement with negative communication. We applied manual content analysis of N = 4,095 Facebook posts published four weeks before the elections by political parties elected in the national parliament. Results showed significant differences across countries using negative messages and the associated topics. The posts’ highest rate of negative statements was identified in Czechia (52%), while the lowest was in Lithuania (17%). There are topics consistently associated with negative statements across most countries, such as corruption, economy and finance, foreign policy, labor, and social issues. However, given that those elections took place during the Covid-19 pandemic in Czechia, Lithuania, Romania, and the Republic of Moldova and, in Hungary, after Russia invaded Ukraine, we also identified contextual topics such as health, war, and conflicts with other countries and defense that were mainly associated with negative messages. Furthermore, negative posts generate more reactions and comments than posts containing no negative statements. Addressing foreign policy in negative posts generates significantly more reactions and comments.

The Effect of Domestic Investment, Foreign Investment, Labor, Unemployment, Human Development Index, and Inflation on Poverty in Indonesia

Indonesia continues to contend with elevated levels of poverty, reflecting the diminished well-being experienced by a segment of its population. Various socio-economic factors influence the poverty rate. It is hypothesized that domestic and foreign investments, workforce participation, and the Human Development Index (HDI) could reduce poverty, while unemployment and inflation might exacerbate it. However, previous research has not reached a consensus on these relationships. This study examines the impact of domestic and foreign investments, labor force, unemployment, HDI, and inflation on poverty levels in Indonesia. The research employs panel data regression analysis, utilizing data from 34 Indonesian provinces spanning 2006 to 2022. The findings indicate that the fixed effect model is the most appropriate for this analysis. The study concludes that domestic investment, foreign investment, and labor force have a significant negative correlation with poverty. Conversely, unemployment demonstrates a significant positive relationship with poverty rates. Notably, the HDI and inflation do not significantly affect poverty in Indonesia. To address these issues, the Indonesian government should focus on enhancing domestic and foreign investor confidence by improving legal certainty and offering various incentives to stimulate investment. Furthermore, the government must prioritize improving education and healthcare services to elevate HDI and alleviate poverty.

고용허가제 외국인근로자의 직업교육훈련에 대한 탐색적 연구

This research scrutinized the prevailing status of vocational training proffered at governmental and municipal levels to foreign laborers admitted via the Employment Permit System, alongside an examination of their influx. The findings reveal that despite an expansion in quotas and occupational domains for those under the Employment Permit System due to escalating demand, the imparted training primarily revolves around rudimentary skill sets or foundational job-specific instruction, indicating a somewhat deficient endeavor towards systematic skill cultivation. In light of these observations, scholarly recommendations have been posited.

Labor migration, remittances, and the economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council region

The massive increase in labor migration to the Middle East during the past three decades has rivaled its historical trends bound to the West. This paper assesses how this growing trend of migration may have helped shape the economic structure and performance across the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Findings from a descriptive and time series regression analysis of the limited cross-country data show that the experience with labor migration and its linkage with other aspects of the economy are varied. The migration trend coinciding with increasing personal remittances attests to the competitive demand for foreign labor. While labor migration shows mixed association with the key aspects of the economy, the stock of migrant population is negatively associated with economic growth. Albeit seemingly contradictory, the insights from this six-country analysis covering the periods since 1990 are useful to understand the complex nature of relationship between labor migration and economic structure and performance in the region.

Immigrant legalization and the redistribution of state funds: Evidence from the 1986 IRCA

We study the impact of immigrant legalization on fiscal transfers from state to local governments in the United States, exploiting variation in legal status from the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). State governments allocate more resources to IRCA counties, an allocation that is responsive to the electoral incentives of the governor. Importantly, the effect emerges prior to the enfranchisement of the IRCA migrants and we argue it is driven by the IRCA’s capacity to politically empower already legal Hispanic migrants in mixed legal status communities. The IRCA increases turnout in large Hispanic communities as well as Hispanic political engagement, without detectably triggering anti-migrant sentiment.