WP6: Mismatch: Migration

Work and Role of Partners

Task 6.1 – Return Migration after the crisis
(SGI & UT)

The Eastern enlargement resulted in significant migration of especially young and highly educated people from the CEE countries to the UK and Ireland in particular. With the onset of the 2008-2009 economic crisis, many EU8 migrants returned to their home countries. Previous analysis has mostly focused on the impact of CEE (youth) migrants and their performance in receiving countries, and much less is known about their contribution to home countries or about their employment outcomes and occupational trajectories after return. The role of welfare/social security on emigration and return patterns, namely the possibility to transfer unemployment benefits to home countries in the aftermath of crisis, will be also studied. Two countries will be looked at in detail: Slovakia and Estonia, which have experienced similar rates of post-accession migration but were affected by the crisis to a different degree.Two questions will be addressed in particular: a) what have been the labour market trajectories of youth migrants after return and how have employers valued the work experience that young people gained abroad? b) how successful were these countries in integrating youth migrants and what role did welfare and labour market policies play in affecting youth migrant integration to domestic labour markets? Analysis will be based on the most up to data available EU LFS survey data, and administrative data (unemployment registries); it will also examine innovative data sources (online job portals) and conduct interviews (ca.10) with labour market actors. The structured comparison of Slovakia and Estonia will be based on detailed empirical review of individual trajectories of return migrants in the given social, economic and institutional context (life course analysis); this will involve a mixed-method approach (quantitative and qualitative analysis).

Task 6.2 – Labour Market Intermediaries
(NOVA & GRAZ)

Small European labour markets have been important recipients of migrant youth. This task will analyse Norway and Austria, two highly regulated labour markets with comparatively high wages and working conditions for their non-migrant working population. The task will examine working conditions including contract forms of young Swedish immigrants in Norway and EU8-migrants in Austria. Taking into account the employers’ perspective, we analyse employers’ rationales and practices related to recruiting and retaining Swedish/EU8-migrants. We look at the impact of intermediary agencies on working conditions and contracts. Austria has implemented transitory periods on free movement of workers from EU8 countries, while migration between Sweden and Norway has had a history of free mobility. We will therefore also consider the effect of different policy measures on recruitment practices. Analysis will be based on the most up to date EU LFS data and original data gathering based on interviews with migrants (ca. 30 interviews per country, considering different countries of origins, occupations and lengths of experience) and labour market intermediaries (ca. 30 interviews per country, considering different kinds of intermediation, industrial sectors and firm sizes). The research methods employed will provide a comparative analysis of the two countries focused on employers’ preferences in migrant recruitment; and a mixed-methods approach (quantitative and qualitative analysis)

Task 6.3 – Migration Patterns
(CEPS )

In this task we will focus on re-emerged intra-European migration flows from the South of Europe to the EU countries less strongly affected by the economic downturn, analysing Italy and Spain in particular. We will compare these to the past flows of South-North migration patterns and with recent East-West migration trends in order to provide a range of lessons from different analytical perspectives. Using mainly survey data and administrative data, the task will identify the key trends and analyse the direction, size and structure of emigration from Southern Europe today and under the guest worker programs in the 1960s and 1970s, and compare South-North migration to the East-West post-accession migration patterns. The analysis of migrant selectivity in the past and today can generate useful insights into understanding the potential of integration of the youth migrants and the role of labour market structures in sending and in receiving countries, including labour market mismatches, and of migration policies (free mobility versus transitory period). Data used will include the most up to date material from the EU LFS representative survey data, administrative data, migrant flow and stock database (Pytlikova dataset, DEMIG dataset), migration policy database (DEMIG); in order to analyse the labour market integration potential of new migrants and mismatch: national data (G-SOEP, IAB – SOEP new migrant sample), Eurobarometer data on migration intentions (‘Youth on the Move’ 2011), European Social Survey will be used to analyse over education.

The methods employed will provide a structured comparison over time (Southern versus Eastern enlargement) and across countries (South-North versus East-West) of migration flows in terms of numbers. This will include a descriptive statistical analysis of migration flow characteristics (skills, age, occupation, job seeker vs welfare recipient, reasons for migration); regression analysis (possibly based on small-N studies): estimating labour market integration models using data on numbers and characteristics of the flows; a policy analysis of the literature on guest worker programs since the 1960s and 1970s, and a text analysis of job ads (to analyse labour market mismatches).

Task 6. 4: Labour market outcomes and integration of youth migrants: comparative view
(CBS)

This task will focus on comparing labour market outcomes of recent Eastern European and Southern European migrants in selected receiving countries, Germany, the UK and Norway in particular. The task is concerned with both skills-occupation mismatch and working conditions including contract type and wages; it also takes account of benefit receipt of migrant workers. Comparisons will focus on the crisis period 2008-2011/2012 and analyse highly educated recent young migrant workers (20-34) by country of origin and compared to national population. Rich administrative data with information on employees, benefit recipients and job seekers are used and subject to data privacy a specific comparison between Polish nationals and Spanish nationals is envisioned. Analysing the performance and labour market outcomes in Germany, the UK and Norway will help to compare different receiving countries’ labour markets with varied types of wage setting systems and labour market segmentation. The data used will include relevant administrative data and the analysis will incorporate a comparative analysis of migrants from these three receiving countries using appropriate quantitative techniques.

Task 6.5 – Policy synthesis and integrative report
(SGI)

This task will bring individual research findings together and will produce a synthesis report containing policy lessons and recommendations and will provide material inputs into the cross-cutting WPs 3 and 4. In the policy synthesis and integrative report all the teams will relate to and build upon previous insights developed through The FP6-SSP project IDEA. Of particular interest for this work package and task 1, 3 and 4 is the development of the model of the migration cycle, distinguishing four different stages which are different in terms of migration flow itself, socioeconomic circumstances in the sending and receiving countries, and by the transformation of the dominant migration regime.