Down and Out: The Children of Migrant Workers in the Belgian Labour Market

Author(s):  
KAREN PHALET

Belgium has three major ethnic minorities – Italians, Moroccans, and Turks – originating from guest workers who arrived in the post-war period. These groups continue to experience significant ethnic penalties in the Belgian labour market. For employment and occupational attainment alike, the Italian second generation experiences the smallest ethnic penalties and comes closest to achieving parity with native Belgians. In contrast, the Moroccan and Turkish second generation experience much larger ethnic penalties. Moreover, the Turkish second generation is clearly at the bottom end of the ethnic hierarchy, since it experiences at once the largest penalties on avoidance of unemployment and on access to the salariat. The persistence of ethnic disdvantage in the second generation suggests that at least part of the explanation is to be found in the receiving society. Possible explanations range from overt ethnic prejudice to citizenship status.

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Holgate

The structural position of black and minority ethnic workers (BME) and migrant workers in the UK labour market is relatively well known. Many workers in these groups find themselves in low-paid, low-skilled jobs primarily because of their ethnicity and regardless of their skills. This racialization of the labour market has been well documented - particularly since the ‘large-scale’ BME immigration in the post-war period. What is less well known is what it is like to work in these increasingly segmented sections of the economy where white workers have abandoned jobs in favour of (slightly) more lucrative work. Adopting a case-study approach, this article follows a trade union’s attempt to organize a sandwich factory of 500 workers, where most of the workforce was made up of BME migrant workers.


Author(s):  
Anthony F. Heath ◽  
Soojin Yu

This chapter offers a variety of explanations as to why ethnic minorities in Britain suffered ‘ethnic penalties’ or serious disadvantages in the labour market. These explanations focused on the lack of human capital on the part of the migrant workers and the prejudice and discrimination they experienced at the hands of the British society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-512
Author(s):  
Simeon S. Magliveras

Filipinos are a major part of the workforce in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a population of almost one million. This article investigates the effects of gender segregation on Filipino workers and how they navigate their lives through systems imposed on them. In particular, it examines the Kafala system (administrative sponsoring system) used for recruiting migrant workers for GCC countries. This article suggests that contrary beliefs about gender segregation and dress codes, Filipinas found it empowering. However, this article also concludes that gender segregation and dress codes also lead to isolation and loneliness. In addition, it is concluded that the fate and contentment of the overseas Filipino workers are directly dependent on who sponsors them.


Author(s):  
Anthony F. Heath ◽  
Elisabeth Garratt ◽  
Ridhi Kashyap ◽  
Yaojun Li ◽  
Lindsay Richards

Unemployment has a wide range of adverse consequences over and above the effects of the low income which people out of work receive. In the first decades after the war Britain tended to have a lower unemployment rate than most peer countries but this changed in the 1980s and 1990s, when Britain’s unemployment rate surged during the two recessions—possibly as a result of policies designed to tackle inflation. The young, those with less education, and ethnic minorities have higher risks of unemployment and these risks are cumulative. The evidence suggests that the problems facing young men with only low qualifications became relatively worse in the 1990s and 2000s. This perhaps reflects the dark side of educational expansion, young people with low qualifications being left behind and exposed in the labour market.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cut Maghfirah Faisal ◽  
Sherly Saragih Turnip

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare loneliness between the left-behind children of migrant workers and the non-left-behind ones, and identify the most significant predictors of loneliness among the left-behind children. Design/methodology/approach Incidental sampling was performed to select 629 participants aged 11–16 from 5 schools in the rural areas of Karawang and Lombok in Indonesia. They filled in paper-and-pencil self-report inventories. Findings Left-behind children were significantly lonelier than their counterparts were. Emotional loneliness was more affected by parental absence compared to social loneliness. Left-behind children would be more susceptible to experience loneliness if they had more access to entertainment gadgets, experienced less support and intimacy from friends, had been left by their migrant parents more than once, were female, had low self-esteem, experienced emotional difficulties and rarely communicated with their parents. Research limitations/implications Qualitative research was needed to provide more elaborative explanation about the findings. Practical implications Parents needed to consider the psychological cost and benefit of working abroad to their children. Governments could intervene by limiting the duration and frequency of work among the migrant workers. Social implications Some beneficial implications to prevent and reduce loneliness among left-behind children were provided, such as by maintaining the frequency and quality of communication with the children, motivating and guiding the children to interact with their peers and spend less time on entertainment gadgets, as well as encouraging the children to engage in several positive activities to enhance their self-esteem. Originality/value This study enriched the understanding about complex relationship between parental presence and adolescents’ mental health despite the fact that adolescents seemed to be more interested in relationships with peers.


Author(s):  
Carlo Barone ◽  
Moris Triventi ◽  
Marta Facchini

Students and parents choose among high school tracks based on the assumption that academic tracks will offer a better preparation for university while vocational tracks will make the transition in the labour market easier, if students do not have a tertiary degree. We assess whether this assumption holds also when considering the long-term occupational outcomes of tracks choices in upper secondary education, controlling for both social and ability selection into tracks. We use for this purpose recent data from the 2014 ISFOL PLUS survey and apply linear regression/probability models to investigate labour market outcomes in a stage of occupational maturity. We find that, while there are no significant differences between tracks in the likelihood of being employed, students with an academic diploma fare better than vocational students in terms of social class attainment, even in the absence of a tertiary degree. The advantage of the academic diploma holds both for entering the salariat class and the high salariat class, and for avoiding demotion into manual occupations or unskilled manual occupations. We also show that tracking accounts for a large proportion of the total effects of socio-economic background on occupational attainment, and that coming from socio-economically advantaged families exacerbates the labour market advantages of attending an academic track.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>The link between social background, high school track and long-term occupational outcomes is analysed.</li><br /><li>Analyses control for social and ability selection into tracks.</li><br /><li>There are no significant differences between tracks in employment status at occupational maturity in Italy.</li><br /><li>Academic diploma holders have higher chances of entering the upper classes and lower risks of ending into manual occupations.</li></ul>


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