The emotional costs of employment-related mobility

Abstract

The relationship between migration, labour market access, and emotions has not been widely analysed despite ample evidence suggesting that difficulties with labour market entry evoke diverse feelings among migrants. The article analyses migrants' narratives of their feelings toward mobility and subsequent labour market participation based on research material relating to skilled migrants entering Norway. The author examines how understanding migrants' emotions associated with place-specific labour market entry, namely low self-esteem, shame, loss of individuality, and infantilisation, but also pleasure and content, can contribute to studies of the relationship between emotion and migration. Work-related and family-related mobility are often considered the least controversial forms of mobility. However, the article shows how they may have gendered emotional costs for the individuals involved. The author concludes that studies of migration and emotion should include these issues in order to tie migration, place, labour market participation, and gender together.

Keywords:

• emotions
• gender
• labour market entry
• labour market participation
• skilled migrants

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Chris Rowland for his very generous help with this article. In addition, I owe thanks to two anonymous referees and the copy-editor Catriona Turner.

Notes

1 All participants names are pseudonyms.

2 All translations of the partipants’ quotes have been made by the author.