Unskilled Migrants Research Articles

Employment prospects for skilled migrants: A relational perspective

Proponents of human capital theory suggest that skill has a key role in employment prospects for international migrants – workers engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which they are not a national – because the more skilled the worker, the greater her or his productivity, and that a productive worker enjoys better job and mobility in the labor market. Critics argue that a policy emphasis on migrants' skill level tends to simplify the employment and broader socio-cultural challenges migrants face. This paper takes a relational perspective on employment prospects for migrant workers addressing issues related to diversity and diversity management at macro-national, meso-organizational, and micro-individual levels. The paper argues that the customary human capital narrative of skilled migrants' success story, which is based on their comparison with unskilled migrants, must be expanded to take into account the interrelated and interdependent multilevel challenges skilled migrants face in the host labor market.

A middle‐class global mobility? The working lives of Indian men in a west London hotel

AbstractIn this article we examine the working lives of young, single, middle‐class Indian men employed in the increasingly global hospitality sector in London, UK. Using a case study of a single hotel, we investigate a particular form of Indian middle‐class global mobility that differs from both the well‐documented ‘low status’, unskilled migrant as well as the highly‐skilled, science oriented migrants. We explore how their jobs both reinforce and challenge middle‐class Indian notions of masculinity, as well as how the recruitment process is both gendered and economically selective. We suggest that the transnational formation of Indian middle‐class identity is drawn from four main categories: a middle‐class lifestyle in India, class‐based motivations, the gendered and class based recruitment process of the UK hospitality industry, and the performance of class‐based gender identities.

Fuite des cerveaux et inégalités entre pays

Résumé La fuite des cerveaux est-elle un fléau ou une aubaine pour les pays en développement ? Cet article revient sur l’état des connaissances à ce jour sur l’ampleur de la fuite des cerveaux dans les pays en développement, ses déterminants et la façon dont elle affecte le bien-être de ceux qui ne migrent pas. Premièrement, je présente une mesure alternative de la fuite des cerveaux et son évolution depuis 25 ans. Ensuite, je procède à une revue de la littérature théorique et empirique. Bien que la fuite des cerveaux soit une source majeure de problèmes pour les pays en développement, elle engendre aussi des effets positifs à travers plusieurs canaux tels que les transferts d’argent des migrants vers leurs pays d’origine, le retour des migrants, les externalités de la diaspora, la qualité de la gouvernance et l’augmentation du rendement de l’éducation. Pendant que de nombreux scientifiques et institutions internationales vantent les mérites de la migration des non-qualifiés pour les pays en développement, mon analyse suggère qu’un taux d’émigration qualifiée limité mais positif (entre 5 et 10 %) peut aussi être bon pour le développement. Cependant, l’actuelle distribution spatiale de la fuite des cerveaux est telle qu’un grand nombre de pays en développement se situent au-dessus de la limite, comme l’Afrique subsaharienne et les pays d’Amérique Centrale.

Migrations et investissements directs étrangers dans l'espace européen (ue-15)

<titre>R&#233;sum&#233;</titre>Dans la th&#233;orie standard du commerce international, migrations et investissements directs &#233;trangers (ide) se substituent l&#8217;un &#224; l&#8217;autre dans le processus d&#8217;appariement entre travailleurs et firmes. Cependant, la litt&#233;rature socio-&#233;conomique r&#233;cente sugg&#232;re que les travailleurs migrants peuvent &#224; la fois transmettre de l&#8217;information sur leur pays d&#8217;origine (par exemple, sur la fa&#231;on d&#8217;y pratiquer des affaires, ou sur les caract&#233;ristiques de la main-d&#8217;&#339;uvre) et prendre part &#224; des r&#233;seaux d&#8217;affaires internationaux, ce qui dans les deux cas peut favoriser les transactions &#233;conomiques bilat&#233;rales. En utilisant des donn&#233;es sur les migrations et les ide intra-europ&#233;ens, nous montrons pour la d&#233;cennie 1990-2000 qu&#8217;il existe une compl&#233;mentarit&#233; dynamique entre migration qualifi&#233;e et ide alors que les liens entre migration non qualifi&#233;e et ide se caract&#233;risent plut&#244;t par une relation de substituabilit&#233; statique (ou contemporaine).

Women’s Cityward Migration, Domestic Service and Schooling in Southern Mexico

That 40,000 women work as household workers in Oaxaca City (population 450,000) is deemed “very high for a country as developed as Mexico” (Selby, Murphy and Lorenzon 1991:48; INEGI 2001). Ethnographic data collected among women currently and at one time working as either full-time or daily/hourly domestic workers shed light on the realities faced by unskilled women cityward migrants who find employment in the lowest paid, least prestigious jobs in the urban economy. Two case studies are presented to illustrate ways that women's paid household labor can finance their own or their children's acquisition of the schooling requisite for more gainful, higher paid forms of urban formal sector employment.

What the signboard hides

In India, there are strong and intimate links between traditional notions of caste, purity and pollution and the preparation and consumption of food. This article studies trajectories of social change within small South Indian eating places, popularly known as Udupi hotels. During the second half of the 20th century such enterprises absorbed a large number of unskilled migrants, mainly from Karnataka's coastal belt. We explore the relationship between caste and employability within the industry and the impact of caste on individual career progress. Combining case studies of enterprises from villages, small towns and cities with data from in-depth interviews with a sample of hotel workers, we argue that small South Indian eating places are elusive social arenas that can shed new light on the nature, persistence and change in caste-based exclusion in important markets for unskilled labour in modern India.

ENDING RESTRICTIONS TO MIGRATION FROM THE NEW EU MEMBER COUNTRIES: SECTORAL TRADE AND REAL WAGE EFFECTS

Most EU‐15 countries have kept restrictions to migration from the new member countries but committed to removing them within seven years from the 2004 enlargement. This article predicts the sectoral trade and real wage impact on high‐income, mid‐income, and low‐income members of removing those restrictions, given two extreme scenarios: either all migrants are skilled or all are unskilled. The main effect of skilled migration is the relocation of high‐scale economy, skill‐intensive industries from mid‐income into high‐income countries. The main effect of unskilled migration is the relocation of low‐scale economy, low skill‐intensive industries from low‐income into mid‐income countries. Both high‐income and low‐income members would be better off with skilled migration, but those with mid‐income would benefit from unskilled migration. (JEL F1, F15, F22, J31, L6)

Brain Drain and Inequality Across Nations

Is the brain drain a curse or a boon for developing countries? This paper reviews what is known to date about the magnitude of the brain drain from developing to developed countries, its determinants and the way it affects the well-being of those left behind. First, I present alternative measures of the brain drain and characterize its evolution over the last 25 years. Then, I review the theoretical and empirical literature. Although the brain drain is a major source of concern for origin countries, it also induces positive effects through various channels such as remittances, return migration, diaspora externalities, quality of governance and increasing return to education. Whilst many scientists and international institutions praise the unambiguous benefits of unskilled migration for developing countries, my analysis suggests that a limited but positive skilled emigration rate (say between 5 and 10 percent) can also be good for development. Nevertheless, the current spatial distribution of the brain drain is such that many poor countries are well above this level, such as sub-Saharan African and Central American countries.

Regional arrangements for mode 4 in the services trade: lessons from the ASEAN experience

The paper deals with regional policies towards temporary labour migration (or the movement of natural persons) with specific reference to the liberalization of trade in services. The paper deals with policies towards labour migration, and progress in related Mode 4 negotiations within the GATS framework, among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. It finds that unilateral, national policies rather than regional or multilateral commitments dominate in policies towards temporary foreign workers. Despite advances on administrative issues, little progress has been made towards achieving ‘GATS-Plus’ outcomes, partly because of the lack of a strong political commitment among member countries to liberalizing the entry of foreign workers and partly because of real or imagined shortcomings in the ‘architecture’ for Mode 4 negotiations. Weak political will has led to relatively shallow commitments with a focus on skilled workers over unskilled migrants. With regard to architectural issues, we draw attention to the weaknesses of the ‘positive list’ approach in services trade negotiations, specifically with regard to the case of labour migration. However, the interpretation of the relationship between different modes of supply has also tended to inhibit regional negotiations for Mode 4. In particular, we point to the neglect of the potential importance of independent suppliers of services. It is concluded that the ASEAN countries need to place more emphasis on regional priorities and problems in seeking more open worker flows within the region.

Sequential Migration, and the German Reunification

The paper develops a sequential migration model and derives a worker's optimal policies for migration and employment. With the worker's simulated reservation wage functions for employment and migration, a stationary equilibrium is defined. In that equilibrium, stationary distributions of employed and unemployed stayers and movers over different states are derived. The analysis of Markov equilibria shows that mainly unemployed skilled and unskilled migrants will migrate. I have referred to this unemployed self-selection of skilled and unskilled migrants. Furthermore, in the stationary equilibrium, a trade off between equity and efficiency is derived and represents the adverse effects when a government fosters income increases too much.

Skilled Emigration, Business Networks and Foreign Direct Investment

In a global context foreign direct investment (FDI) and migration substitute one another in the matching process between workers and firms. However, as labor flows can lead to the formation of business networks, migration can actually facilitate FDI in the long-run. We first present a stylized model for a small open economy illustrating these offsetting effects. We then use U.S. data on bilateral labor inflows and capital outflows to measure the extent of contemporaneous substitutability and dynamic complementarity between migration and FDI. We find that brain drain and FDI inflows are negatively correlated contemporaneously but that skilled migration is associated with future increases in FDI inflows. We also find suggestive evidence of substitutability between current migration and FDI for migrants with secondary education, and of complementarity between past migration and FDI for unskilled migrants. Keywords; brain drain, foreign direct investment inflows, migrant ties and business networks

Sequential Migration, and the German Reunification

The paper develops a sequential migration model and derives a worker's optimal policies for migration and employment. With the worker's simulated reservation wage functions for employment and migration, a stationary equilibrium is defined. In that equilibrium, stationary distributions of employed and unemployed stayers and movers over different states are derived. The analysis of Markov equilibria shows that mainly unemployed skilled and unskilled migrants will migrate. I have referred to this unemployed self-selection of skilled and unskilled migrants. Furthermore, in the stationary equilibrium, a trade off between equity and efficiency is derived and represents the adverse effects when a government fosters income increases too much.

European Labour Mobility: Challenges and Potentials

European Union economies are pressed by (i) a demographic change that induces population ageing and a decline of the workforce, and (ii) a split labour market that is characterized by high levels of unemployment for low-skilled people and a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers. This lack of flexible high-skilled workers and the aging process has created the image of an immobile labour force and the eurosklerosis phenomenon. In such a situation, an economically motivated immigration policy at the European level can generate welfare improvements. A selective policy that discourages unskilled migrants and attracts skilled foreign workers will vitalize the labour market, foster growth and increase demand for unskilled native workers. The paper summarizes the available economic insights, and suggests (i) the need to harmonize the single-country migration policies across Europe and (ii) that the European Union needs to become an active player on the international labour markets by providing competitive institutional settings for European companies.

A Report on Gender Discrimination in South Africa's 2002 Immigration Act: Masculinizing the Migrant

Changes in immigration policy and legislation have the power to shape and alter the gendering of migration in significant ways, and can have a dramatic effect on the lives and relationships of the men, women and families involved. In this paper, we examine the provisions of the new Immigration Act introduced in South Africa in 2002. The Act, which replaces the outdated Aliens Control Act of 1991, gives considerable cause for concern on gender grounds. Foremost, the Act entrenches a system of male-dominated regional labour migration that has its origins in the 19th-century discovery of gold and diamonds. The male bias in the work permit and other employment-based categories along with the limits to family reunification for those entering for work are likely in effect to discriminate against women to a greater extent than men. While similar gender concerns are common to most immigration policy regimes around the world, the particular circumstances of the South African case, where both skilled and unskilled migration streams are heavily male-dominated, makes them especially acute here. This paper contextualizes migration regimes in South Africa and examines in detail the likely implications of the new Immigration Act.

Gender and Migration Policies in Southeast and East Asia: Legal Protection and Sociocultural Empowerment of Unskilled Migrant Women

AbstractThis paper is concerned with how existing migration policies affect individual migrant women's choices, in particular, with the advancement, or consolidation, of a migrants' rights perspective. The focus is thereby on those migrants classified as unskilled, who constitute the largest and most vulnerable category among migrants. The analysis of migration policies has conventionally been approached from a state/government‐centred viewpoint that sees states as the key actors. This paper, however, emphasises a larger number of actors ‐ governmental and non‐governmental ‐ as well as the power relations among them to argue that protection through “legal regulation” in the absence of actual implementation is an incomplete solution to alleviate unfair labour conditions that migrants in general, and migrant women specifically, experience. Measures designed to “protect” migrants must be accompanied by measures that empower them, a role that has largely been taken on by existing migrant worker non‐governmental organisations (NGOs). Focussing on intra‐Asian migration flows in which Southeast Asia is the main labour sender and East Asia the receiver of Southeast Asian migrants, the paper explores the nexus between law and civic activism in the specific subject area of international labour migration and its gender implications.

European Labour Mobility: Challenges and Potentials

European Union economies are pressed by (i) a demographic change that induces population ageing and a decline of the workforce, and (ii) a split labour market that is characterized by high levels of unemployment for low -skilled people and a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers. This lack of flexible high-skilled workers and the aging process has created the image of an immobile labour force and the eurosklerosis phenomenon. In such a situation, an economically motivated immigration policy at the European level can generate welfare improvements. A selective policy that discourages unskilled migrants and attracts skilled foreign workers will vitalize the labour market, foster growth and increase demand for unskilled native workers. The paper summarizes the available economic insights, and suggests (i) the need to harmonize the single -country migration policies across Europe and (ii) that the European Union needs to become an active player on the international labour markets.

Globalisation and the Labour Market

This paper explores the consequences of globalisation for the labour markets. By defining globalisation as 'the consequence of the diminishing costs of distance the analysis is able to use the economist's standard trade theory to show explore the impact of globalisation on labour mobility in the impact of trade of labour conditions, and of differential mobility (the favouring of skilled migrants over unskilled migrants). Some consideration is given to the particular circumstances of the New Zealand labour market. One conclusion of this - all to brief- paper is to insist that migration must be seen in the context of a particular sort of globalisation of the labour market.

Skill Complementarities and Migration Decisions

This paper offers an explanation of the high mobility of skilled workers based on human capital complementarities. If the skill premium is increasing in the average level of human capital of a location, and there exist fixed migration costs, in equilibrium the more skilled the workers are, the stronger the economic incentives to migrate towards the richest regions will be. Moreover, endogenously generated differences in productivity due to migration affect occupational choices and regional specialization. Empirical evidence consistent with the proposed explanation is provided using data on Italian regions. It emerges that, even after controlling for economic conditions, a high population share of individuals who completed college or high‐school in a region seems to be a relevant pull factor for the most educated migrants. In contrast, the importance of this variable, which measures the average level of human capital of a location, drops when unskilled migrants are considered. Finally, the effects of migration on the evolution of regional disparities are taken into account.

Employment and earnings of foreign-born scientists and engineers

Research on skilled immigrants is an important, yet much neglected, topic in studies of the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy. Much of academic research and indeed most of the immigration policy debate have been preoccupied with unskilled or less-skilled migrants (Smith & Edmonston 1997). It is easy to understand this emphasis. The typical immigrant possesses less schooling than the average native worker (Funkhouser & Trejo 1995). Moreover, part of the growing wage gap in the United States between workers with a college education and those without a high school diploma may be due to labor market competition between immigrants and lesser skilled native, particularly minority, workers (Smith & Edmonston 1997). Lost in much of the debate is the fact that immigrants are over-represented at both ends of the educational spectrum. Data from the 1990 census show that 42 percent of adult migrants over the age of 25 and who came to the United States during the 1980s had less than a high-school education, compared with just 23 percent of natives (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1993). On the other hand, 24 percent of the foreign born in the same category possessed a bachelor's degree or higher versus 20 percent of the U.S. born. Research on the migration of the highly skilled is also relevant to immigration policy. Changes in U.S. immigration laws in the past decade have been crafted partly to address what has been perceived as the problem of a growing shortage of skilled workers in the U.S. economy (Bouvier & Simcox 1994). For example, the Hudson Institute's Workforce 2000 report concluded that, "The need for more, better-educated immigrants to help staff a growing economy will increase as the growth of the population and labor force slows in the 1990s (Johnston & Packer 1987: xxv). In addition, Borjas (1990, 1994)

Output/Endowment and Commodity/Factor Price Relationships and Welfare in a Multilateral Trade Model with Partial Factor Mobility

A multilateral model of trade with both commodity flows and partial mobility of factor flows is set up. This model is used to develop factor endowment/output relationships as well as commodity/factor price relationships. Welfare consequences of these parametric shifts are examined. The model is built on the customs union framework which involves three countries and both commodity and factor flows. Owing to spillover effects in multilateral trade models, many nontraditional results are obtained. Many developed countries accept skilled and unskilled migrants from other countries. These migrants are generally accepted on a quota system. Moreover, it has been established that an increase in the migrant quota in the presence of factor mobility may raise or lower the output and welfare in the country not receiving migrants. In fact it is shown that the non‐migrant receiving country could be immiserized due to loss of capital. The main message of this paper is that in a multilateral trade framework there exist international spillover effects which must be taken into consideration in national policymaking.