State work and the testing concours of citizenship

Anyone trying to be a citizen has to pass through a set of practices trying to be a state. This paper investigates some of the ways testing practices calibrate citizens, and in doing so, perform “the state.” The paper focuses on three forms of citizenship testing, which it considers exemplary forms of “state work,” and which all, in various ways, concern “migration.” First, the constitution of a “border crossing,” which requires an identity test configured by deceptibility. Second, the Dutch asylum process, in which “being gay” can, in certain cases, be reason for being granted asylum, but where “being gay” is also the outcome of an examination organized by suspicion. And third, the Dutch measurement of immigrants’ “integration,” which is comprised of a testing process in which such factishes as “being a member of society” and “being modern” surface. Citizenship is analyzed in this paper as accrued and (re)configured along a migration trajectory that takes shape as a testing concours, meaning that subjects become citizens along a trajectory of testing practices. In contributing both to work on states and citizenship, and to work on testing, this paper thus puts forward the concept of citizenship testing as state work, where “state work is the term for that kind of labor that most knows itself as comparison, equivalency, and exchange in the social realm” (Harney, 2002, pp. 10–11). Throughout the testing practices discussed here, comparison, equivalency, and exchange figure prominently as the practical achievements of crafting states and citizens.     

Gender differences in labour market integration trajectories of recently arrived migrants in the Netherlands

This study investigates gender differences in recently arrived migrants’ labour market activity and occupational status both shortly after arrival and with increasing length of stay. We examine the role of education, household composition and traditional gender role values by estimating multi-group multilevel models based on three waves of the New Immigrants to the Netherlands Survey. In line with findings regarding gender gaps in labour market behaviour, recent female migrants are less active on labour market than their male counterparts, and we observe a clear motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium on the number of hours worked. Men and women show only marginal differences in their occupational statuses. Changes over time do not differ between men and women, indicating persistent gender inequality in labour market attainment. Moreover, interesting differences between the nationalities were found. Polish migrants show the highest activity levels and lowest occupational status, also when compared to Bulgarians. Spanish migrants hold the highest occupational statuses. Recent Turkish migrants seem to be better integrated and show fewer gender differences than the more established Turkish minority in the Netherlands.     

组织支持、城市融入与新生代农民工离职:一个被调节的中介模型

新生代农民工过于频繁的离职行为导致企业用工成本上升,同时也阻碍了农民工的城市融入进程.基于组织支持和互惠理论,采用问卷调查的方式,实证检验了组织支持感、城市融入感及互惠与新生代农民工离职意愿之间的关系与作用机制.研究结果表明,组织支持感负向影响新生代农民工的离职意愿,城市融入感在其中起到了中介作用.同时,新生代农民工的互惠倾向对城市融入感与离职意愿的关系具有强化调节作用,并进一步调节城市融入感在组织支持感与离职意愿之间的中介作用,也即新生代农民工的互惠水平越高,城市融入感的中介作用越强.文章首次测度了新生代农民工的互惠倾向,并且验证了微观企业的组织支持能够促进新生代农民工的城市融入.研究结论为用工企业更好地理解新生代农民工心理行为机制,从而建立有效的管理措施提供了理论指导,同时为寻找新生代农民工城市融入的实现路径提供了依据.     

Language roulette – the effect of random placement on refugees’ labour market integration

Placement of refugees and subsequent labour market integration within a host country represents a key challenge for policymakers and has emerged as one of the most divisive topics in the public debate. Immigration policy in Switzerland adopts random placement of asylum seekers across its different language regions. Hence, this policy allows to estimate the causal effect of language skills on employment chances, as refugees are exogenously placed across regions where the spoken language could either match or deviate from individual language skills. The results of this ‘natural experiment’ indicate substantially higher probabilities of finding employment when asylum seekers are placed in regions with a lingua franca that matches their individual language skills. Additionally, the findings suggest that language course participation can offset the reduced likelihood of employment in cases of a language mismatch. While random placement of refugees may be desirable for political reasons, it is detrimental to the economic integration process. Thereby, the study draws relevant conclusions for a larger European immigration policy.     

A user’s guide to Lisbon: mobilities,spatial apprenticeship and migrant urban integration*

This paper engages with the ‘mobility turn’ scholarship in order to provide tools for the study of migrants’ integration to urban space. The analysis of urban mobilities draws attention to the practical know-how that underlies mobility practices. I argue that migrants’ urban apprenticeship – that is, the ways migrants learn (to use) city spaces – shape their access to urban resources and their participation in urban life. Based on fieldwork conducted in Lisbon, Portugal, I explore how migrants’ urban knowledges play out in their everyday practices and resonate with broader concerns over migrant integration.     

德语空间性状形容词的时间映射特质研究

基于认知隐喻理论，选择德语中14个表征空间性状的形容词，探究其时间映射特质。研究发现:长/短、大/小、远/近、高、深可表征时间，其余则无法表征时间。具体特质如下:存在“一维＞二维＞三维”映射维度等级；存在“长短＞远近＞高深/大小”映射宽幅等级；正向形容词比负向更易表征时间。这种映射特质主要与时空相似性、认知思维及隐喻操作有关。     

The myth of price convergence under economic integration: A proposed explanation for the difference in food prices across European countries

Conventional globalization theory states that regional economic integration will precede price standardization across participating countries due to the increased buying power of large retail groups and parallel imports. The resulting price corridor should merely reflect differences in logistic costs and short-term, local competitive actions. Yet, this study uses panel data from 25 European countries to examine how hefty food and beverage price differentials between regions remained constant over the last decade. Income, store productivity, and market concentration all contribute to the explanation for regional price differences. These findings suggest that, contrary to straight-line globalization theory, large European retailers’ decisions can influence price convergence and maintain important price dispersion between economically integrated countries. We provide recommendations to enhance market integration.     

Does the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership contribute to regional integration?

The paper investigates whether Southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern markets under the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership (Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Malta, and Turkey) have become more financially integrated with the European stock market over time. The findings suggest that the Turkish equity market is moderately integrated with the European market, while the other economies exhibit weak financial integration with Europe, supporting the idea that the partnership appears to have no effect on enhancing inter-market linkages for these economies. Therefore, these markets would be good destinations for international investors seeking attractive investment opportunities to diversify their equity portfolios. Structural changes in the cross-market integration do exist, which may be considered as a guide for international equity portfolio diversification over different subperiods. In addition, there is evidence of an increasing trend in conditional correlations for Egypt and Turkey, to varying degrees, over time, notably during the post global financial crisis of 2007–2008, thus revealing herding behavior during this period. Overall, investors should be wary of the variation of equity market integration over time before engaging in an investment at the level of portfolio management and diversification. Policymakers must be aware of the remoteness of the current achievements of the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership from the targets set in terms of financial development and economic growth.     

Simultaneous structure estimation and variable selection in partial linear varying coefficient models for longitudinal data

Partial linear varying coefficient models (PLVCM) are often considered for analysing longitudinal data for a good balance between flexibility and parsimony. The existing estimation and variable selection methods for this model are mainly built upon which subset of variables have linear or varying effect on the response is known in advance, or say, model structure is determined. However, in application, this is unreasonable. In this work, we propose a simultaneous structure estimation and variable selection method, which can do simultaneous coefficient estimation and three types of selections: varying and constant effects selection, relevant variable selection. It can be easily implemented in one step by employing a penalized M-type regression, which uses a general loss function to treat mean, median, quantile and robust mean regressions in a unified framework. Consistency in the three types of selections and oracle property in estimation are established as well. Simulation studies and real data analysis also confirm our method.