Economic Crisis and Institutional Resilience: The Political Economy of Migrant Incorporation

Abstract

This article focuses on the situation of migrants and their descendants in European labour markets. This important socioeconomic dimension of the current crisis illuminates the role of pre-existing policies and institutions and points the way to political solutions. The article begins with a comparative puzzle: how can one account for cross-national, cross-local, and cross-sectoral variation in the labour market outcomes of migrant-origin minority groups and explain migrant-origin and gender differences. This is followed by a critical examination of debates on the ‘integration’ of migrants and the ‘second generation’ reflecting political diatribes on the across-the-board poor performance of minorities and the role of ethnic or religious factors. An alternative explanation underscores the importance of policy paradigms and institutional hurdles focusing on three aspects of European political economies: welfare state arrangements, education, and sub-national labour market policies. The arguments put forth rely on comparative aggregate data and surveys in countries representative of ideal types according to the original version of the varieties of capitalism, worlds of welfare, and integration models literature, in particular France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Randall Hansen and Oliver Schmidtke for discussing earlier versions of this article as well as the two anonymous reviewers that took the time to provide thoughtful and constructive comments.

Notes

1. Other social categories are relevant to understanding the background and dimensions of the crisis: young people, who experience high levels of unemployment and hold precarious jobs, or women, who are more likely to hold part-time jobs, are overqualified, and are paid less than men.

2. In his ‘multiple policy streams’ model, a crisis may be the moment when previously parallel streams meet, usually through the work of political entrepreneurs: elected officials are interested in the solutions that bureaucrats have on offer given the ‘problems’ put on the agenda by various interest groups (Kingdon 1984).

3. ‘Completely’ implied that even EU nationals were excluded; ‘partially’ meant that applicants had to be EU citizens since France decided to apply EU law in 1991 or have a French diploma, or both.

4. Migrant women, just as native women, are systematically overqualified (Eurostat 2011) so there is a gender issue here but it is more pronounced for migrant women.

5. The TIES survey was first funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung and compared second-generation Turkish youth to a control group in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland. Main website: http://www.tiesproject.eu/. The survey has grown to 10,000 respondents in 15 European cities located in eight countries. It includes descendants of immigrants from Turkey, Morocco, and the former Republic of Yugoslavia.

6. SPD: the German Social Democratic Party.

7. ‘Integration: Merkel erklärt Multikulti für gescheitert’, Spiegel online, Politik, 16 October 2010, available at: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/integration-merkel-erklaert-multikulti-fuer-gescheitert-a-723532.html (accessed 15 September 2013).

8. Description of the mission statement of the AmkA on the official website for the city of Frankfurt am Main, available at http://www.frankfurt.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=7017&_ffmpar%5B_id_inhalt%5D=7846492 (accessed 2 July 2013).

9. Income data comes from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) from 2008.

10. School attendance becomes compulsory at age 6.

11. See also the OECD Better Life Index online: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/germany/.