Ethnic penalties? The role of human capital and social origins in labour market outcomes of second-generation Moroccans and Turks in the Netherlands

In Western Europe, the children of Moroccan and Turkish migrants were found to be significantly disadvantaged in the labour market. This ethnic gap was found to persist after considering differences in schooling, which was argued to reflect ‘ethnic penalties’ driven by cultural, religious, or racial factors. This study uses data from the 1st Wave of the ‘Netherlands Longitudinal Life-Course Study’ (2009–2010) to revisit the analysis of ‘ethnic penalties’ for second-generation Moroccans and Turks. Unlike in previous research, empirical analyses not only consider differences in schooling, but also skills and social origins. Results show substantial ethnic inequalities in the labour market, with the exception of women from Moroccan origins. For men, these ethnic inequalities do not disappear when human capital factors are considered, but they do when accounting for the unprivileged social origins of ethnic minorities. For women, the disadvantage of second-generation Turks in achieving privileged occupations clearly disappears when human capital and social origins are considered. Yet, the chances of being unemployed among women of Turkish origins persist after controlling for education, skills, and social origins. Overall, this study has global academic and public policy implications to understand the socioeconomic integration of the Moroccan and Turkish second generation in Western Europe.     

Searching for belonging and confronting exclusion: a person-centred approach to immigrant settlement experiences in Canada

ABSTRACT

Drawing on an analysis of three immigrant narratives, this paper employs a person-centred approach to immigrant integration in Canada. It examines how immigrants interpret the inclusions/exclusions that mark their integration experience and the consequences these experiences have on their social identities and sense of belonging. Analysis demonstrates that for immigrants a sense of belonging does not grow in a linear fashion; rather, it grows, stalls, dissipates and/or flourishes in relation to the ties and identifications that immigrants are enabled to forge. Broader structural and historical forces prefigure immigrant inclusion and exclusion in Canada in ways that reflect a hierarchy of migration and belonging. We argue that a recognition of Canada’s ‘hierarchies of belonging’ and the multidimensional nature of social inclusion/exclusion complicate integration metaphors that flatten the uneven social terrain of immigrant belonging.     

Contact and conflict between adult children and their parents in immigrant families: is integration problematic for family relationships?

Previous studies have shown that family ties are relatively strong in most non-western immigrant groups in Europe. This paper focuses on differences within the immigrant population and examines how cultural and social aspects of integration affect the relationships that adult children have with their parents. The study is based on survey data with a systematic oversample of persons aged 15–45 with Moroccan and Turkish origins in the Netherlands. The focus is on the amount of contact and conflict that children have with their parents. Findings show that persons of Moroccan and Turkish origins have more frequent contact, but also somewhat more conflict with their parents compared to people without any migration background. Ordinal logit models show that ties to parents are weaker when immigrant children are more liberal in their values and behaviours and when they have more frequent contact with natives. Educational attainment tends to increase conflict between parents and adult children. It is concluded that cultural and social integration may hurt family relationships, pointing to another but less often recognised obstacle for immigrant integration in the west.     

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.     

Irregular employment amongst migrants in Spanish cities

This article presents the irregular employment situation of non-European union immigrants in Spanish cities. Foreign labor is remarkable for its heterogeneity in terms of country of origin, demographic characteristics, and the different ways in which immigrants have entered the job market. Legal immigrants tend to concentrate in five different branches of activity, such as domestic service (mostly women), hotel and restaurant industry, agriculture, building and retail trade. Migrants who work in agriculture suffer the worst labor conditions than all other migrants. However, all migrants experience difficulty in obtaining residency and labor permits. Four integration strategies among Moroccan immigrants in Catalonia are discussed and can be viewed as support networks of the immigrants.     

Explaining the refugee gap: a longitudinal study on labour market participation of refugees in the Netherlands

In this paper, we examine the existence and development of the ‘refugee gap’: the difference in labour market participation rates between refugees and other types of migrants. Using the cumulative disadvantage hypothesis, we studied whether the ‘refugee entry effect’ scars refugees for their working careers in the Netherlands. To do so, we used register data (Social Statistical Database), containing information on all refugees who received refugee status in the Netherlands between 1995 and 1999 (N?=?33,030). We compared their labour market participation over the 2000–2011 period with that of labour and family migrants in the same cohort (N?=?78,298). We conclude that the ‘refugee gap’ exists at the start of refugees working career in the Netherlands and that it diminishes over time.     

Fluid adaptation of contested citizenship: second-generation migrant Turks in Germany and the United States

This paper explores belonging in the context of legal citizenship for second-generation Turkish immigrants in Berlin and in New York. Fluid adaptation refers to the discursive boundaries of immigrant identity articulations, the contextual and shifting adjustments immigrants make to their sense of belonging. Immigrant belonging, gauged by ‘encounters’ with bureaucracies and participatory expressions, is shaped in large part by the receiving state's legal framework and citizenship status. Belonging is complicated by racialization and exclusion, and affected by intersectionalities of immigrant experience. Limited citizenship models necessitate deployment of fluid and alternative membership models. Alternative forms of belonging underscore the power of the nation-state in delimiting belonging.     

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.     

Human capital,family structure and religiosity shaping British Muslim women’s labour market participation

Economic activity among Muslim women in the UK remains considerably lower and their unemployment rate significantly higher than among the majority group even after controlling for qualifications and other individual characteristics. This study utilises two data sets to explore possible factors underlying these differences, such as overseas qualifications, language skills and religiosity. It reveals that while religiosity is negatively associated with labour market participation among British Christian-White women, economic activity among Muslim women are not negatively affected by high religiosity. Furthermore, family structure and the presence of dependent children were among the most important factors explaining the latter’s labour market participation, although these relationships were moderated by qualifications. More women with higher qualifications were economically active even if married and with children, although some of them experienced greater unemployment, probably due to discrimination in recruiting practices and choices and preferences on religious grounds.     

Care-full failure: how auxiliary assistance to poor Roma migrant women in Spain compounds marginalization

ABSTRACT

In Spain, the national and local authorities boast in recent years about their progressive programs for the integration of Roma migrants from Romania. Many state efforts to work with Roma on their integration are specifically directed at women. Economic integration into the waged labor market is considered a major goal as it, supposedly, leads to the empowerment of Roma migrant women while also securing decent standards of living for entire families. This article argues that integration programs adversely result in the further discrimination and exclusion of those they pretend to relief. This adverse result is produced through a two-tier intervention in the lives of Roma families. The caring state works with a general category of ‘vulnerability’ for targeting populations, in which Roma migrant women are specifically incorporated through designated social programs. The performance of Roma as the subject–object of these programs is carefully evaluated. According to these evaluations, Roma women often fail to meet the normative standards of ‘good mothers’, ‘decent wives’, and ‘diligent workers’. Subsequently, to deal with ‘failing subjects’, the disciplining state, a-la Foucault, inflicts an array of penalties on Roma women and their families: cut-offs of social benefits, evictions from poor dwellings, withdrawal of children’s custody, and forced removals to Romania. We thus argue that initiatives by the caring state (and civil society) often prescribe or go hand-in-hand with repression from the correcting state. In welfare states, social programs can thus conclusively ‘evidence’ existing stereotypes about marginalized Roma families and about women in particular.     

Determinants of cultural assimilation in the second generation. A longitudinal analysis of values about marriage and sexuality among Moroccan and Turkish migrants

Employing Dutch longitudinal information on 1250 second-generation Moroccan and Turkish migrants we investigate cultural assimilation using attitude questions on marriage and sexuality (including measures of homophobia). Two theoretical approaches guide our analyses. First, it is expected that the family of origin may push migrants in a more conservative direction. Second, it is expected that aspects of individual achievement in social, cultural and socioeconomic domains may pull migrants in more liberal directions. We find that Moroccan and Turkish migrants have considerably more conservative values about marriage and sexuality than natives, but there is also variation within the second generation. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses for migrants indicate that the role of parents is particularly important: migrant children of religiously more orthodox parents and children of parents who were poorly integrated socially and culturally in their youth, currently have more conservative values about marriage and sexuality, even when individual characteristics are controlled for. Of the various aspects of individual achievement, we find that especially social integration of the second generation is a relevant predictor of liberal values, and not socioeconomic indicators of integration. These results remain significant in a stringent longitudinal test which minimises the bias due to reverse causation.     

Making a difference in Mogadishu? Experiences of multi-sited embeddedness among diaspora youth

ABSTRACT

Civic participation today is increasingly multi-sited, operating in, between and across specific locations. Growing numbers of people experience multi-sited embeddedness, which I understand both in the sense of belonging to and engaging in multiple communities. In this article, I focus on those who left Somalia as young children or were born to Somali parents in exile, and ask what motivates these young people to return or turn to the Somali region. What experiences shape their civic engagement and where do they engage? How does their hybrid, multi-sited or embedded sense of identity impact their engagement in several locations? And how does that engagement affect their sense of identity? The article is based on 80 in-depth interviews and four focus group discussions in Garowe, Hargeisa, Mogadishu, Oslo and the Twin Cities. Informants stayed for shorter or longer durations in the Somali region but lived for the larger part of their lives in Norway or the United States. I illustrate how young people’s civic engagement impact feelings of belonging as much as their sense of belonging influences their civic actions. In this article, I argue for non-binary ways of studying multi-sited embeddedness that do justice to diaspora youth’s everyday negotiations.     

The paradox of integration: why do higher educated new immigrants perceive more discrimination in Germany?

This article analyses the relation between immigrants’ educational attainment and their perceived discrimination. Previous studies in the Netherlands have found that ethnic discrimination is a particularly salient concern among higher educated immigrants, also referred to as the paradox of integration. By using data from the SCIP-project (‘Causes and Consequences of Early Socio-Cultural Integration Processes among New Immigrants in Europe’), I empirically examine, firstly, whether this counterintuitive finding applies to the group of recently arrived Polish and Turkish immigrants in Germany. Secondly, based on three theoretical perspectives, and taking the opportunity structure, immigrants’ awareness, and their relative deprivation into account, I am concerned with the explanation of the integration paradox. Bivariate results confirm the existence of the integration paradox for recent immigrants in Germany. The findings of mediation analysis and effect decomposition indicate that all three theoretical approaches contribute to the explanation; however, the positive relation between educational attainment and perceived discrimination requires slightly different explanations for Poles and Turks. The results further illustrate that it would be misleading to conclude that higher educated immigrants are automatically protected against discriminatory acts.     

Black Women Social Workers in the Great Depression: A Test of Sheltered Labor Market Theory

Sheltered labor market theory proposes that, under favorable public-sector policies, members of an outcast minority group can find relief from discrimination by performing an occupation that delivers social welfare services to a co-ethnic clientele that the majority group seeks to avoid. The present study tests this proposition, examining black women’s employment in social work during the Great Depression. Regression analyses of census data support the theory, suggesting that black women had a sheltered labor market in the social work profession in the North, where official non-discrimination policies in New Deal job creation programs were more scrupulously enforced than in the South. In northern cities, black women’s employment in social work is positively associated with black–white residential segregation as well as with blacks’ employment in public emergency work projects (e.g., the WPA). Thus, consistent with sheltered labor market theory, a minority group’s representation in a social welfare delivery occupation is enhanced by both public-sector economic intervention and the minority’s social and spatial distance from the majority.     

Young Moroccan-Dutch: Thinking in Dutch,Feeling Moroccan

Abstract

We examined to what extent Moroccan-Dutch (N?=?25) between 15 and 32 years of age are oriented towards the Dutch and Moroccan community when describing their identities. We used the Twenty Statements Test (developed by Kuhn and McPartland (1954). See, M. H. Kuhn and T. S. McPartland, “An Empirical Investigation of Self-attitudes”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1954, p. 69. In this study, participants were asked to complete the sentence with ‘I am..’ 20 times to assess how they described themselves.) and in-depth interviews to understand their challenges on the acculturation path since many face disadvantage and exclusion in the Dutch community. Moroccan-Dutch were, compared to the reference groups of mainstream Dutch (N?=?20) and Moroccans (N?=?25), more proud of their ethnic identity and attached to Islam. Though their Dutch language was dominant, they felt more Moroccan. They praised the Dutch openness, but suffered from negative stereotyping. Their participation in the Dutch community was low. To enhance their position, social professionals working with Moroccan-Dutch could draw on the rich ethnic and faith traditions of this group to encourage their deeper engagement with the Dutch society.     

Occupational aspirations and ethnic school segregation: social contagion effects among native German and immigrant youths

In this study, I broaden the perspective on young immigrants’ aspirations by looking at their social embeddedness in the host society in terms of their institutionally predefined ties to school peers. In particular, I investigate the relationship between the aspirations of immigrant and native youths with special regard to the social mechanisms that may underlie peer influences. My analyses are based on multilevel data on ninth graders from the German National Educational Panel Study. The results show that a high ratio of immigrants in schools positively influences the aspirations of both immigrant and native German youths by way of school climate. However, the same context has different effects on different groups of origin. For those of Turkish descent, ‘ethnic schools’ are of twofold significance: first, the aspiration gap between Turks and native Germans decreases with increasing segregation, an effect that may be attributable to less perceived discriminatory experiences in school. Second, Turkish young people's stronger adaptation to the climate in ethnically segregated schools reinforces the protective effect of ethnic segregation and, additionally, lowers the aspirations of these youths. That is, immigrants’ stronger orientation towards their in-group seems to contribute to a buffer against discrimination.     

Diaspora as aesthetic formation: community sports events and the making of a Somali diaspora

This paper uses the concept of aesthetic formation to examine the practices through which diasporic imaginations become tangible and experienced as ‘real’. The authors interpret sport as an embodied aesthetic practice through which diasporas materialise, with important implications for identification and belonging. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on a transnational community-based sports event, the Amsterdam Futsal Tournament, the paper discusses how articulations of Somali diasporism become tangible and embodied in subjects who participate in this event. The authors conclude that these materialisation practices can simultaneously elicit multiple forms and levels of belonging that also foster a sense of integration and belonging to the nation.     

Changing places: children of return migrants in Albania and their quest to belong

This study examines the experiences of children of return migrants to Albania following the economic crisis in Europe. Adopting a longitudinal approach in which participants were followed-up after a year and employing participative qualitative research methods, the study investigates how perceptions of local and translocal spaces and social relations interact to shape children’s (aged 7–12 years) sense of belonging to their parents’ homeland. Findings suggest that the children’s initial positioning is influenced by a perceived lack of everyday places of play and unsettled local interactions with peers. The research indicates further that, over time, children actively seek to inhabit and identify with their new surroundings and that meaning-making is shaped by experiences that transcend multiple localities. It documents how children of return migrants attain a sense of belonging via interacting with different physical and social contexts in a complex process which appears simultaneously facilitated and impeded by adults. Overall, the findings of this research suggest that children’s sense of belonging is negotiated in relation to multiple temporal and spatial frames of reference to which children attribute meaning.     

‘To what world am I being released to?’*: Canadian national news discourse and the anticipated repatriation of Omar Khadr

Between January 2010 and September 2012, Canadians anticipated the possible return of a citizen incarcerated in Guantánamo for approximately a decade. This temporal moment incited narratives about Canadian citizenship and belonging. Narratives, I argue, that are discursively mediated through (and anchored in) the figure of the White Canadian. Khadr’s potential return to Canada is expressed as a perilous racial encounter between white nationals and a foreign racial body. To bring to life this encounter, I draw on three expressions of fear in Canadian national news media. I first trace how narratives of descent, evident in discussions of Khadr’s family and its history, reinforce distinctions between authentic and inauthentic Canadians. Second, I consider how Khadr’s failure to incarnate Canadian values re-produces whiteness and rationality as qualifiers of national membership and belonging. Lastly, I demonstrate how the putatively contagious nature of the Muslim terrorist psyche valorizes racial distinctions between Canadians and Muslims. My work aims to make visible the ideological labor of national news discourse. I think through these representations within the racial politics which structure citizenship and negotiations about what it means to be Canadian.