Past, present and future: how the Lithuanian Diaspora in the Netherlands accumulates human capital from social capital

ABSTRACT

This paper explains how social capital activates the accumulation of human capital within a Diaspora context. Our study focused on migrants in the Lithuanian Diaspora and revealed unexpected differences in the way low- and high-skilled migrants developed and applied social capital in order to accumulate human capital. Namely, despite a less privileged point of departure, low-skilled Lithuanians appeared stronger in developing new social networks, and were more driven to strengthen their human capital than high-skilled migrants. The study provides novel empirical and theoretical insights by explaining the significance of social capital in the accumulation of human capital among Diaspora communities. In so doing, the study provides important insights for integration policy development for immigrant-receiving countries, offering a different perspective on high- and low-skilled migrant mobility and integration intentions.

KEYWORDS:

• Social capital
• human capital
• diaspora
• Lithuania
• migration
• social networks

Introduction

Over the past decade, people’s mobility and migration across borders has become an increasingly significant topic within the social sciences domain (Lamba 2003; McIlwaine 2011; Moser 2009). This can partly be attributed to growing migration across Europe, catalysed by the open borders policy among European Union (EU) member countries. Transnational social networks have also contributed to rapidly growing migration and widely dispersed populations (Thaut 2009). To get established in a new host setting and to maintain their national identity, migrants often forge connections with fellow natives. In so doing, migrants generate ‘Diaspora communities’ (Ghorashi and Boersma 2009), which refers to the development and maintenance of strong personal and physical links to their homeland (Kilduff and Corley 1999; Safran 1991), established with co-natives in a new host setting (De Lange 2013).

The decision to migrate is often based on people’s existing social connections in a destination country (Nee and Sanders 2001), and which comprise a potential resource for migrants. The resources deriving from such social connections have been conceptualised as ‘social capital’ (Bourdieu 1993). Some studies have established that social capital can compensate for a lack of local knowledge, language skills or professional qualifications, or a person’s ‘human capital’ assets (Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993). In this respect, social capital can be particularly helpful for migrants with low or devalued human capital in a foreign labour market context, through their connection to fellow natives (Åkesson 2013; Lamba 2003). However, other studies argue that social capital can have negative implications for migrants, limiting their scope of employment possibilities to specifically low-skilled positions (Kelly and Lusis 2006), or exerting social pressure to send remittances to family in the homeland (Chort, Gubert, and Senne 2012; Lindley, 2009). Therefore, social capital represents a double-edged sword in the context of migration, triggering both enabling and disabling consequences. To understand how migrants cope with these conflicting consequences, this paper analyses the conditions under which social capital can activate the accumulation of human capital. In other words, we seek to understand how migrants’ social relations strengthen or restrain the development of their capabilities and skills to progress in terms of their livelihoods opportunities.

This is an important topic of inquiry, as European open borders policy and the enlargement of the EU (with eight new member countries in 2004 and two more in 2007) has encouraged many Eastern Europeans to seek economic prosperity abroad, following established Diaspora communities (Beine, Docquier, and Özden 2011; McDowell 2009). For instance, more than half a million Lithuanian citizens (on a total population of three million remaining in the country) have emigrated to other European countries (European Migration Network 2012), such as Ireland (Feldman, Gilmarting, and Loyal 2008) and the United Kingdom (UK) (Rasinger 2010; Thaut 2009). Indeed, over the past decade, the number of Lithuanians registered in the Netherlands has grown tenfold, from 488 in 2004 to 5.091 by 2014 (CBS 2015; disregarding Lithuanians not formally registered as inhabitants). Understanding how this growing group of migrants develops social relations and establishes new livelihoods is thus an important concern in the context of European and national migration policy. However, the social capital and human capital implications of this increasing population is understudied, which is surprising given their potential impact on European social and economic development.

In this paper, we seek to respond to the question: How is social capital activated within the Lithuanian Diaspora community in the Netherlands? We addressed the question through a qualitative study, comprising observations of different Diaspora online communities and informal social events, and interviews with Lithuanian migrants occupying a wide range of employment positions across diverse industries. Our analysis revealed unexpected shifts in human capital development among high-skilled versus low-skilled migrant groups, which is the focus of this paper. We contribute to current research on Diasporas by introducing a social capital perspective to explain the accumulation of human capital among migrants, and provide empirical evidence of integration patterns among a growing community of Lithuanian migrants.

Theoretical background: the concept of Diaspora and migrant networks

The concept of Diaspora is the notion that people, who migrate to and disperse across different places, maintain a feeling of ‘home’ even when abroad. Therefore, scholars define Diaspora as fostering among migrants strong emotional and material links with their homeland (Kilduff and Corley 1999; Safran 1991). We employ the term to highlight that, while some migrants try to assimilate to the host setting and even withdraw from their home countries, Diasporas preserve the connection with their homeland, their national identity, and ongoing right to return (Gillespie et al. 1999; Kelly and Lusis 2006). At the same time, Diasporas economically and socially contribute to the place of origin based on the activities developed in their new host country (De Lange 2013).

Migrants are often enticed to move to a foreign country where they already have an established social network. These sometimes also represent globally oriented migrant networks, often referred to as expatriate or ‘expat’ communities, which comprise ‘transnational elites’, consisting of skilled, transient migrants despatched abroad by their companies or recruited by foreign businesses (Beaverstock 2002). The importance of expat communities is widely discussed in the current debate on international mobility, given their significance in the global flow of labour and knowledge resources (e.g. Beaverstock 2012; Glastra and Vedder 2010; Haas 2006). Given their international embedding, expats tend to activate social capital deriving from global rather than local social spheres and often reflect ‘cosmopolitan interests and practices’ (Beaverstock 2002) deriving from and oriented towards broad experience in many countries (Haas 2006). Expat communities develop due to employment positioning or common career interest, and tend to span multiple nationalities, whereas Diaspora networks comprise single ethnicity, and are mostly used to maintain personal and physical connection with the homeland. Thus, expat communities often complement Diaspora networks, but interaction across such networks is limited, and yields different forms of capital activation. What they nonetheless have in common, is that migrants tend to rely on these social networks to get initially established (Beine, Docquier, and Özden 2011).

Employing these networks, people within Diasporas can connect with each other without being directly acquainted, for instance through friends of friends, or as only casual acquaintances back in the homeland. These social ties can be an advantage for accessing crucial resources in the host setting, that is, jobs or accommodation (Lin 1999), or to bridge connections to other viable social networks (Burt 2000). Therefore, to understand how migrants become established in a new host setting, it is useful to examine these social networks in more detail, for which a ‘capital’ perspective is appropriate.

The ‘capital’ perspective

A Diaspora community is based on social networks established by migrants in a foreign host setting. Social networks comprise a diversity of social links and interactions between individuals (Lamba 2003). The resources and various benefits embedded in these links and interactions evoke the concept of social capital (Bourdieu 1993; Portes 2000). However, social capital can be converted, thereby impacting on the accumulation of other capitals, such as human capital (Kelly and Lusis 2006), as we explain below.

Social capital (Bourdieu 1993) is often described as the connections that people acquire through their social networks, and which generate benefits or advantages (Coleman 1988; Kelly and Lusis 2006). Narayan and Pritchett (1999) broadened this perspective to include the ‘[…] rules, norms, obligations, reciprocity, and trust embedded in social relations, social structures and societies’ institutional arrangements that enable its members to achieve their individual and community objectives’ (6). Thus, social capital is the ability of an individual to achieve goals by employing ties to other members in their network, and the value of one’s social capital is based on the resources within their social network.

Migration studies often highlight that most migrants strongly rely on available social networks. For instance, among Latin Americans residing in the UK, many relied on their existing social capital to find accommodation and initial jobs (McIlwaine 2011). Such examples illustrate that social capital is often transferred from the homeland, and reconstructed in the new host setting, enabling easier integration into a predefined social network based on co-ethnic connections (Kelly and Lusis 2006). Other studies also demonstrate how social capital can become very valuable in sharing knowledge about a host country or accumulating other assets, such as human capital (Beine, Docquier, and Özden 2011; Moser 2009).

The concept of human capital is frequently used in the economic literature and refers to the composition of individual education background and skills (Meyer 2001; Nohl et al. 2006). Human capital in the context of migration is crucial, as obtaining language skills and professional qualifications can help to integrate into the local setting and enter the labour market (Gracia, Vázquez-Quesada, and Van de Werfhorst 2016; Parutis 2011). The fact that social capital activates human capital was made explicit by Burt (2000) who proposed:

Social capital is the contextual complement to human capital. The social capital metaphor is that the people who do better are somehow better connected […]. Certain people or certain groups are connected to certain others, trusting certain others, obliged to support certain others. (347)

In fact, the reliance on social capital in a migration context varies, depending in part on the human capital that migrants have accumulated so far (Gracia, Vázquez-Quesada, and Van de Werfhorst 2016).

Social capital can sometimes restrict people’s human capital accumulation among members of a migrant community. Indeed, whereas the concept of social capital is often framed in a largely positive light, we argue (as in Portes 2000) that the effect of social capital in a migration context is ambiguous, and can also constrain migrants’ accumulation of human capital on the long term. These constraints can be intentional, through the imposition of expectations within a community, but can also be unintentional, in guiding migrants towards low-skilled employment.

Given the ambiguous nature of social capital in migration literature, it remains unclear how migrants can derive more benefits from social capital embedded in Diaspora networks. To add to this understanding, we employed a case study of the Lithuanian Diaspora community in the Netherlands, which we now introduce.

Setting

The Lithuanian migrant community in the EU is a relatively neglected research domain, which is surprising given the immense wave of Lithuanians migrating over the past 20 years (Thaut 2009). On a total population of three million, almost a quarter of the entire population emigrated since the country’s independence in 1990, of whom half a million since Lithuania’s EU entrance in 2004 (European Migration Network 2012; Statistics Lithuania 2013). For these people, migration offered an escape from high unemployment rates (of almost 18% in 2010) and low minimum salaries (around 300 Euros per month) (Eurostat 2015). Indeed, a recent survey (Berger and Wolf 2011) identified that Lithuania’s poor economic situation was aggravated during the recent economic crisis, which further catalysed Lithuanian migration.

This vast migration wave continues to have a significant impact on the country. For instance, the high migration of young people in particular has led to changes in the demographic structure of the country, to labour shortage and to brain drain. At the individual level, it has led to the disruption of family structures and their immersion in an alien culture. However, migration has also allowed some to access higher wages and better job opportunities, benefiting the migrants themselves and sometimes their families back home.

The population of around 5.000 Lithuanian migrants in the Netherlands remains modest in comparison to other European countries (such as the 150.000 officially registered Lithuanians in the UK). Moreover, Lithuanians remain overshadowed by other (e.g. Polish) migrant groups in overall numbers (Janta and Ladkin 2013). However, of the Baltic countries, Lithuanians comprise the biggest population in the Netherlands, showing a tenfold increase since 2000, as evidenced in Table 1. Our study of Lithuanian migrants in the Netherlands thus represents an interesting and timely research context, as Lithuania is fast becoming a nation strongly affected by European out-migration, while the Netherlands, traditionally an attractive country for migrant settlement (Doomernik 2012; Penninx 1984), is increasingly facing a need for adapted policies to better meet the needs of these new immigrant streams.

Table 1. Baltic state migration into the Netherlands.

Country of origin	Time period
	2000	2004	2008	2014
Estonia	346	431	589	1240
Latvia	459	633	945	3642
Lithuania	488	839	1743	5091

Source: CBS (2015).

The Lithuanian Diaspora in the Netherlands is still emergent in its organisation (with for instance only one Lithuanian language school in the country, hosted by the Embassy), and is less structured than the far larger community in for instance the UK, but initiatives are blossoming. Moreover, due to the modest yet growing size of the community, it is easier for Lithuanians in the Netherlands to become acquainted with one another. Studying the rapidly growing Lithuanian Diaspora in the Netherlands can yield important lessons for migration policy in countries aimed at strengthening integration, such as the Netherlands and other Western European countries, as well as countries aimed at curbing emigration and fostering remigration, such as Lithuania itself (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania 2014).

Methodology

Our research question calls for inductive, qualitative methods, which we conducted through a field study between April and December 2014, and comprising online and offline observations of the community, as well as interviews. A biographical summary is provided for each of the interviewees in Table 2.

Table 2. Research participants.

Name	Age M/F	Time living in NL	Education	Personal situation	Dutch language skills	Past: Previous occupation	Present: Current employment in NL	Future: Plans
High-skilled Lithuanian migrants
Aiste	26/F	3 yrs	MSc in business (NL)	Came to NL to live with her Dutch partner	Basic	Student (NL)	HR specialist in international publishing house	Move somewhere else
Ieva	29/F	2.5 yrs	MSc in finance (EU)	Originated from a wealthy and cosmopolitan family	None	Finance specialist for 5 years in a multinational company (EU & NL)	Same position in a new company and better salary	Stay in NL, at some point return to LT
Saulius	25/M	3 yrs	BA in business (EU)	Left LT after finishing school to study abroad	Conversant	Student (EU)	Manager for 3 years in multinational company	Stay in NL, learn Dutch, maybe return to LT
Lina	25/F	2 yrs	MSc in business and HR (NL)	Moved to NL together with a group of friends	None	Student (NL)	HR intern in a start-up company	Stay in NL, learn Dutch or move somewhere else
Migle	33/F	3.5 yrs	BA in theatre and music (LT)	Came to NL to live with her Dutch partner	Basic	Worked in the movie industry across EU (but mainly in LT)	Broadcast operator in media industry	Stay in NL but is dreaming of final return to LT
Vida	30/F	6 yrs	BA in engineering and management (EU)	Worked and travelled across and outside Europe since teenage years; proactive in Diaspora activities	Basic	Internship in sourcing and logistics (EU)	Management assistant in international company	Maybe stay in NL or move somewhere else
Auste	32/F	5 yrs	MSc in business (LT)	Has been living outside LT for 10 years	Basic	Accountant in a local company (EU)	Accountant in multinational company	Final return to LT
Darius	34/M	6 yrs	MSc in I.T. (LT)	Has been living outside LT for 10 years	Proficient	IT specialist (EU)	IT specialist	Final return to LT
Gedas	29/M	6 yrs	BA in literature (LT)	Worked in several different EU countries	Fluent	Stocking up shelves in a warehouse (NL)	Freelancer in media arts	Fully establish his own business
Low-skilled Lithuanian migrants
Ruth	36/F	5 yrs	None	Forced into an early marriage; single mother; comes from abusive family.	Proficient	Sales assistant (LT)	Cleaner	Start her own business in NL
John	25/M	4 yrs	Vocational agriculture school (LT)	Followed his parents’ advice to study something he was not interested in	Conversant	Assembly line worker in a flower factory (NL)	Loader machine operator in a warehouse	Gain higher education in NL or other EU country
Tina	23/F	3 yrs	None	Followed her friend when moving to NL	Proficient	Assembly line worker in a flower factory (NL)	Crew trainer in a restaurant chain	Get higher education and fully settle in NL
Rimas	28/M	3 yrs	None	Parents deceased from alcoholism	Basic	Assembly line worker in a food factory (LT)	Manual worker in a poultry farm	Open a restaurant in NL
Karolina	31/F	12 yrs	None	Moved to NL straight after finishing school, was illegally employed until LT joined EU.	Fluent	Cleaner and receptionist in a hotel (NL)	Sales assistant in a cosmetics shop chain	Stay in NL and improve her career
Rita	21/F	10 mths	Vocational hairdressers school (LT)	Followed her partner when moving to NL	Basic	Assembly line worker in a fish factory (NL)	Cleaner in a hotel	Get education and settle in NL

Note: Participants are denoted by pseudonyms to protect their anonymity; moreover, we avoid specifying countries they used to study or work in, referring instead to ‘EU’ where other (European) countries apply. Abbreviations: NL (the Netherlands), LT (Lithuania), EU (other European countries).

We purposefully selected research participants (Ritchie et al. 2014) through offline Diasporic community events such as LT-Art, online platforms such as Facebook groups for Lithuanians in the Netherlands and the ‘LT Big Brother’ platform, and through the second author’s own social network. We selected interviewees following four broad criteria, namely native Lithuanian, living in the Netherlands for longer than six months, currently employed, and willing to participate in our study. Using these criteria we were able to ensure that interviewees reflected a range of occupations, reasons for migration, and established social capital, which allowed us to compare different human capital assets among members of the Lithuanian Diaspora.

The interviews were conducted in an open manner, whereby we invited interviewees to tell their own migration histories, and probing them for details of their social networks, their education and their professional backgrounds, both in Lithuania and since their arrival in the Netherlands. Interviews lasted around two hours, and were conducted both face-to-face and virtually (via Skype). All interviews were recorded and transcribed. Our observations comprised of Diaspora interactions through virtual media (as described by Hine 2008), and during informal gatherings of Lithuanian migrants within the second author’s social circle; notable observations were described in a field journal.

We coded our data (using Atlas.ti software), by first searching for patterns in a data-driven manner (Taylor 2001). Interpreting these patterns, we applied constant comparison with existing theoretical insights (Suddaby 2006), which allowed us to draw inferences from our data relevant to our research questions.

Case study: Lithuanian Diaspora in the Netherlands

All the Lithuanian migrants we spoke indicated they felt a sense of belonging to a Diaspora community through two attributes proposed by Brubaker (2005), of dispersion and homeland orientation. Indeed, these Diasporic attributions were highly visible during interviews and observations, that is, participants constantly referred to Lithuania as their ‘true homeland’, indicating a sense of belonging in the context of a familiar cultural background. A third, converse notion of boundary maintenance (Brubaker 2005) was also implicitly yet clearly evident: some interviewees mentioned that they felt disengaged from the Netherlands, and never called it their ‘real home’.

Most members of the Lithuanian Diaspora approached for this research participated in Diasporic community events, and were active participants of online platforms such as Facebook groups (shown by prior studies to serve as support facilitators in the process of migration; Tabor and Milfont 2013). Yet, despite being part of the same (on- and offline) community, we found that the migrants we spoke to differentiated themselves from one another based on their socio-economic status and accumulated human capital.

Socio-economic status is a relative measure, which serves to compare a person’s social position to that of others’, based on his or her income, education and occupation (Breiger 1995; Campbell, Marsden, and Hurlbert 1986). These indicators are useful towards categorising a diverse research sample, as in our study; indeed, our research participants themselves identified dimensions related their skills and employment as a particularly salient explanation of their possibilities to advance and the limitations they experienced in engaging with others. Therefore, in our research we were primarily oriented towards understanding differences in terms of human and social capital between high- and low-skilled migrants.

High-skilled workers are often defined as ‘holding university degree or extensive/equivalent experience in a given field’ (Iredale 2001, 8), which complies with several respondents in our study who, moreover, occupied corporate positions in international companies. These respondents, being able to afford a university education, derived from a relatively privileged background, with strong pre-migration economic capital. This contrasts with low-skilled workers, who have not completed a higher education, lack occupational experience, and conduct manual labour, fitting the profile of several other respondents. Although this distinction is not absolute and subject to change, our research participants suggested that interaction between high- versus low-skilled workers was limited at best.

For example, the menial labourers among our respondents suggested that they rarely if ever engaged with Lithuanian corporate professionals, and vice versa. This is interesting, as the events and meeting forums we studied were not exclusively geared to any specific population group. This segregation might be explained by the spatial dispersion of different migrants, with many corporate professionals based in larger cities such as Amsterdam and The Hague, while menial labourers were often based in rural areas close to factories or farms. Although our research precludes definitive conclusions or any causal relations based on our modest sample, we nonetheless observed notable differences between the high- and low-skilled migrants we interviewed.

We structure our findings staying close to what respondents themselves deemed significant, namely whether they engaged in low-skilled or high-skilled employment, how they came to this employment, and what they envisaged for the future. We follow this personal timeline, presenting their reasons for migration in the past, the role of social capital in their present, and their accumulation of human capital towards the future, subdivided according to high-skilled and low-skilled labourers as a means of comparison.

The past: reasons for migration

Our respondents shared notable differences in terms of their motivations to migrate: some were guided by career opportunities and pursuit of education, while others sought to escape personal and economic hardship. This often corresponded with their level of employment in the new host country and their engagement in high- versus low-skilled labour.

High-skilled Lithuanians: career and education

Many Lithuanians engaged in high-skilled labour explained that they had originally relocated abroad to access higher quality education and pursue career advancement. Indeed, their primary motivation was educational advancement and thereby improvement of human capital, although economic gain through better career opportunities was an anticipated result. Ranging in professions from information technology (IT) specialist to finance analyst in prominent multinational companies, relocation helped them to better apply their skills and increase their accumulation of human capital (as described by Åkesson 2013).

This trajectory was exemplified by Vida, a management assistant at an international company in Amsterdam. Initially studying and working in another Northern European country, she made a career-driven decision to move to the Netherlands. Namely, her previous employer offered her the choice to transfer either to a local village, or to Amsterdam but on a lower salary. Despite the financial downturn, she opted for the latter, recognising more possibilities for self-realisation, both occupationally and personally. Similarly, another migrant, upon completing his business degree in the UK, explained his career-driven migration as follows:

I didn’t have any romantic reasons; I was simply looking for a job [ … ] in Europe. It didn’t really matter where to go, but when I got an offer from my current company and they asked whether I would prefer to go to London or Amsterdam, I chose the second option, as I was already familiar with London, and Amsterdam seemed more interesting and challenging. (Saulius, supply chain manager)

These migrants consciously chose a specific location, but other young professionals also strongly focused on employment position, a particular company, or educational opportunities:

My first motivation was to come to the Netherlands because I didn’t want to leave Europe. And secondly, it was the price of studies. Also, I looked for possibilities that allow me to financially survive in the foreign country. (Lina, Master’s student)

Lina made a clear choice for the Netherlands due to its affordable education, proximity to Lithuania, and her financial viability in the host setting. However, she was also in touch with a network of Lithuanian friends already established in the Netherlands, who helped her persevere in approaching the Dutch labour market and finding a simple job to support her studies.

Interestingly, most of our respondents engaged in high-skilled positions had already lived in other European countries prior to moving to the Netherlands (except Lina, who migrated directly from Lithuania). While career opportunities drove their choices towards a specific place, they suggested their international mobility contributed to a ‘cosmopolitan’ attitude, whereby they perceived themselves as world citizens and part of an expat community, rather than part of a nation-bound community.

Low-skilled Lithuanians: economic and social capital

We also spoke to Lithuanian migrants in the Netherlands who occupied positions as cleaners, poultry factory workers, or catering workers. Among these migrants, this low-skilled employment was perceived as an important way to escape economic disadvantage, deriving from the insufficient salaries and job scarcity in Lithuania. For example, Rimas explained that he had initially lived a fairly comfortable life in Lithuania, with a steady job as a factory worker, which allowed him to secure a loan and purchase his own apartment. This allowed him to escape his difficult family background involving severe alcohol abuse. However, following a lay-off, he could no longer independently fulfil his mortgage payments, leading to debts amongst friends and colleagues. Indeed, Rimas saw no other choice but to seek employment abroad.

Social factors also contributed to many migrants’ decision to move. For instance, Tina, initially enrolled in a Lithuanian university, was encouraged by a friend to come to the Netherlands for a summer job in a flower factory. Coming from a family background involving alcoholism and abuse, Tina gladly accepted the offer. She explained: ‘I was thinking of staying a few months longer because I was studying part-time and the studies were starting only in October. I expected to stay here no longer than Christmas, but somehow, I overstayed, and never regretted that’. At the time of our study Tina’s intended summer stay had already been extended to three years. Although living conditions were sometimes tough, sharing accommodation with other workers, she explained that living in the Netherlands still represented an improvement, gaining access to a slightly better income, albeit through menial labour, but escaping the harmful homeland environment.

The decision to migrate was for the majority of our interviewees encouraged by their networks of friends or family. For example, Gedas had moved to the Netherlands after receiving a job offer from his cousin as an unskilled warehouse labourer. Indeed, reliance on acquaintances, friends or family in a destination country proved a useful stepping stone for many of our interviewees, providing them with the social capital to compensate for lacking human capital assets such as language skills or university degree.

In sum, the experiences shared by our respondents echoed prior findings, which suggest that high-skilled migrants are often incentivised to migrate by better career and education opportunities (Åkesson 2013; Kapur and McHale 2005), and in accordance with their previously accumulated human capital, that is, education and work experience elsewhere. Respondents conducting low-skilled labour however were primarily incentivised through economic reasons, seeking to escape difficult personal circumstances and the poor economic situation in the homeland, often encouraged by Diasporic connections.

The present: the role of social capital

Settling into their present life, we found some salient differences among high- and low-skilled migrants, particularly related to the ‘brokering’ role of social capital, which proved enabling for the former, and constraining for the latter.

High-skilled Lithuanians: the role of family and international networks

Among our respondents, family networks played a significant role in their efforts to secure a better quality of living. However, the nature of this role varied among those engaged in high- versus low-skilled labour. For instance, Saulius, who worked for a multinational company, explained: ‘My parents travel a lot, and they were always encouraging me to experience the world. They were always saying that there is more prosperity outside Lithuania’. Similarly, close family networks also provided support, security, and reliability for other high-skilled migrants. For some of the interviewees, expat networks – comprising multiple nationalities but also a transnational network of Lithuanians– also opened up possibilities in the Netherlands, and allowed them to benefit from both new and previously accumulated social networks. For instance, Saulius had been an active member of the Lithuanian student Diaspora in the UK, and was able to tap into this same network – now partially established in Amsterdam – upon his own transition to the Netherlands. His former UK-based Lithuanian friends introduced him to their international expat circle, which proved extremely beneficial in terms of helping him secure very scarce accommodation in Amsterdam.

Similar scarcity applies to employment in Amsterdam. Despite the city’s international character, even skilled migrants struggle to obtain reasonably paid, high-skilled employment, as in many other European cities. For instance, by completing a Master’s degree in the Netherlands, Aiste (a human resources specialist) had hoped to accumulate gain easier access to the local labour market, but was disappointed by her independent efforts to find a job. However, she was vigorously involved in the activities of the Lithuanian Diaspora, and, via the (migrant) partner of a Lithuanian friend, was able to secure a well-paid job:

That guy, he […] was the partner of my Lithuanian friend, and it had also been difficult for him to find a job in Amsterdam. So I think he had empathy for my situation, and this is why he offered me the position in my current job.

In fact, during her two and a half years in the Netherlands so far, her different jobs had been obtained through people that she acquainted during her studies or through other friends.

Although our interviewees did not purposively search for new connections, social capital was particularly accumulated through their international ties among both the Lithuanian Diaspora and the broader expat community, and which clearly helped to improve their access to important information related to scarce resources such as accommodation and employment opportunities.

Low-skilled Lithuanians: the function of employment agencies

Our research also disclosed a different dimension of social capital, based on the employment agencies that facilitated access to low-skilled jobs. Targeting low-skilled migrants, agencies’ websites advertised that foreign language skills were not a job requirement (for instance for poultry, fish and flower factories, or for construction sites). Moreover, they promoted themselves by capitalising on the poor job market in Lithuania, calling for migrants to ‘Come to us’ with slogans such as: ‘Your CV doesn’t matter’ or ‘Can’t make the ends meet with the minimum wage?’. Thus, the agencies presented themselves as brokers, providing low-skilled migrants with an entry point to the new country and possible employers.

However, our respondents who had engaged with these agencies complained about extremely harsh working conditions, mentioning for instance 12-hour shifts in a poultry factory, frequent relocation, and cramped living quarters, sharing with up to 12 other labourers from various nationalities (which often led to tensions). Moreover, they felt their salary was disproportionally being garnered by the agencies, as Rimas, a poultry farm worker, explained: ‘My hourly pay is like 6-7 euros, but the agency gets more, as the employer is paying around 20–30 euros for each employee to the agency’. The workers were therefore very vulnerable, but were disempowered to seek more stability or independent sources of income through their lack of human capital in the form of language skills or education, and social capital in the form of independent networks. Thus, they remained at the mercy of the agencies.

In fact, agencies recognised the benefits they derived from their position, purposively choosing to employ people without human or social capital. For example, Ruth moved to the Netherlands without any social and economic support from others. She was quickly able to secure a new job as a cleaner through a Dutch employment agency, and established connections with other employees in her new job. She worked five different positions during the week to support her son in Lithuania, and made an effort to quickly learn the Dutch language. With her newly obtained language skills and secure accommodation, she approached a Lithuanian agency to inquire about better job opportunities. Surprisingly, the agency indicated that they were not interested in hiring people who could speak Dutch and had their own accommodation. When asked why this might be, Ruth suggested that the agencies recognised their power, which did not apply to someone familiar with and established in the Dutch legal and social system.

Despite the harsh conditions faced by low-skilled migrants, their employment also yielded positive outcomes, particularly related to generating resourceful social contacts. First, unskilled Lithuanians were closely interconnected with other Lithuanian factory workers, and through online-based (Facebook) communities targeting the Lithuanian Diaspora in the Netherlands. People used these platforms to share their knowledge about the Dutch system, such as insurance, social protection, taxes, labour regulations, and so on.

Second, their employment helped generate social networks with Dutch citizens and Dutch employers. These connections proved crucial in the development of human capital for most interviewees. Namely, many migrants were encouraged by their employers to learn Dutch as a way to boost their career opportunities. Moreover, these connections helped them to sever constraining ties with employment agencies. For instance, John had initially come to the Netherlands as a manual worker in the flower industry via a Lithuanian employment agency. In recognition of his hard work, one of his Dutch employers invited him to transfer to a new position as a team leader, and invested in John’s Dutch language course, aiming to promote him to warehouse manager. Thus, the constraining brokerage position of Lithuanian employment agencies was sometimes replaced by enabling brokerage by Dutch employers. Indeed, in expanding their social capital within the Dutch labour context, Lithuanian migrants were also often able to accumulate human capital, providing a stronger basis towards developing their future.

The future: accumulation of human capital

Interestingly, our respondents showed rather different approaches towards their future plans, with some perceiving themselves as very mobile in the international labour market, or aiming to return to Lithuania to raise a family, putting little to no effort into learning the local language. In contrast, many migrants engaged in low-skilled work were eager to learn Dutch as quickly as possible, and appeared to lack any ambition to return to Lithuania.

High-skilled migrants: lack of language skills, and ambitions to return

To achieve successful immersion during the integration process into a host society, learning the local language is a crucial skill. However, the high-skilled respondents in our study rarely displayed basic Dutch language knowledge, and only few were motivated to develop them. Many attributed this to the international context of Amsterdam, where English is a commonly used language. Moreover, the people who had been working for international companies also said they tended to surround themselves with other internationals, and therefore did not feel a need to learn the local language. As Ieva, a finance specialist explained:

The Dutch course was part of my contract, but somehow I never had the time to attend the classes. However, if I need to learn Dutch for work, I would gladly do so. […] But I am just talking about it and doing nothing.

This attitude was shared by Lina, a HR intern, who indicated: ‘To be honest, I like the country and feel comfortable here. So if I see that I am going to stay here for at least five years, I would definitely learn the language’. Thus, learning the language was not a high priority for these interviewees, and their willingness to do so was highly dependent on their future plans.

Many high-skilled Lithuanians considered eventually returning to Lithuania. Family support networks had encouraged these Lithuanian professionals to seek life enhancement abroad, and these social ties remained highly dominant in their future orientations. For instance, an aspiring Lithuanian couple, one of whom worked as IT specialist and the other as accountant, had been living abroad for over 10 years. About to start their own family, they were bound to return to Lithuania to raise their children amongst their well-established family and social support networks. In fact, they explained that the host setting could never replace the feeling of home they had in Lithuania.

Interestingly, our interviews showed that some Lithuanians were actively engaged in expat circles and had international orientations, but continuously longed for their families in their homeland, showing that one can be ‘cosmopolitan’ but still maintain a strong sense of belonging to one’s homeland.

Low-skilled migrants: accumulation of human capital and entrepreneurship

Among the low-skilled migrants we spoke to, many indicated a strong disposition towards settling into the host society, and they actively sought to develop their human capital in the form of language skills to support their integration process. For instance, Ruth explained that developing language skills opened the doors for better employment opportunities. Initially working as a cleaner for multiple companies, one employer recognised Ruth’s potential value to his company through her successful determination to learn the language. In fact, he offered her a full-time position, as well as the possibility to follow a two-year higher education programme, with the aim to engage her as a manager.

Most of the interviewees concluded that patience and hard work was a way to earn employers’ trust, and achieve a higher position. For instance, since her start in the flower factory, Tina was steadily advancing her career in a restaurant chain. She proved to be a valuable team member, and was elected employee of the year. In fact, her employer offered her a promotion to crew trainer, with perspective on a management position, pending her completion of several company courses and improvement of her Dutch language skills. These developments inspired Tina to seek higher education, thereby strengthening her human capital and her possibilities for the future. Similar to Ruth and Tina, most low-skilled migrants showed aspirations to increase their human capital in the host country by furthering their education, towards ultimately starting their own business. For instance, Rimas – currently a poultry farm worker – dreamed of obtaining certification that would enable him to work as a cook on oil platforms, or to open a restaurant in the Netherlands: ‘First of all I want to finish paying my debts, then save some money and start my own business, as I see that in the Netherlands there are many opportunities’.

A salient difference between migrants’ future plans related to their return to Lithuania, which most high-skilled Lithuanians aimed for, related to their relatively stable family backgrounds that provided a comfortable environment in which to settle. In contrast, many low-skilled migrants had left behind a harmful environment, and thereby lacked social or emotional ties to Lithuania, so did not perceive even visiting the country as an enticing prospect. Indeed, many of these interviewees mentioned that they felt much more relaxed, secure, and stable than while living in Lithuania. Thus, their detachment from social networks in their homeland encouraged their life-long migration and incentivised their integration in the Netherlands, which was further strengthened by newly created social networks within the Dutch context, and ensuing possibilities to develop their human capital.

Interpretation of findings

Interpreting our findings, we identified that several low-skilled migrants in our study showed stronger human capital development deriving from their migration, than the high-skilled migrants. Indeed, the low-skilled migrants we spoke to all came from an under-privileged background whereby social capital often initially inhibited rather than supported their progress; nonetheless, these migrants ultimately proved more driven to learn the language or develop new skills, by drawing on the new social ties they generated in their host countries (for instance with their Dutch employers, who often encouraged them in their advancement opportunities). In this manner, they activated their social capital towards accumulating human capital.

In contrast, the high-skilled Lithuanians in our study were able to draw more strongly on strong social capital deriving from their country of origin, and were encouraged to study and seek an international career, which provided an upfront advantage in terms of their human capital assets. However, they were often less motivated to learn a new language or integrate into the new host setting, in view of their intentions to move on to other countries, or back to their home country (consistent with Bijwaard and Wahba 2014). Thus, in the host country higher-educated migrants drew on their social capital to access job opportunities, rather than as a means to develop human capital.

To better understand how social capital activation occurred amongst the migrants we spoke to, we zoomed in on their networks, which disclosed that many low-skilled Lithuanians in particular relied on ‘brokers’ to support their human capital development, but that the actual agent occupying the broker position changed during their integration process. This change reflected migrants’ development of social capital, and thereby their reliance on others to obtain benefits, and in turn, their ability to generate human capital. Namely, low-skilled migrants lacked or were even constrained by their social and human capital to arrange for their entry to a new destination country through their own means (in contrast to high-skilled migrants), and therefore depended on brokers who did possess relevant social capital to gain access to the Dutch labour market. In our case, this brokerage role was often initially assumed by the Diasporic network, later, by employment agencies, and ultimately by Dutch employers.

Diasporic social networks provided them with the initial social support and access to job opportunities that were otherwise unavailable, enabling entrance to the Netherlands. This is in line with Nee and Sanders (2001), who state that migrants with weak human capital tend to rely on social capital much more often in order to fulfil their basic needs; indeed, Diasporic networks allowed migrants to share experiences, while at the same time strengthening their collective sense of belonging and support for each other during hardship.

Subsequently, Lithuanian employment agencies assumed an important brokerage role between low-skilled migrants and Dutch employers but often abused their position by taking advantage of migrants’ lack of local knowledge and language skills (echoing prior studies of low-skilled migrants in the UK, as in Ruhs, Rogaly, and Spencer 2006; or Anderson 2010). However, we observed an incremental change in the dynamics of capital development amongst our interviewees, whereby the low-skilled migrants we spoke to incrementally detached themselves from their initial brokers of Diasporic networks and employment agencies. In fact, this change was catalysed by their development of human capital, in terms of Dutch language skills, and their decision to permanently settle in Netherlands, rather than returning to their homeland. Indeed, their newly acquired social capital, ultimately often incentivised by their Dutch employers, played an important role in enabling human capital development. Figure 1 provides a schematic representation of this change process observed in our study.

Figure 1. Accumulation of human capital through social capital.

By activating their human capital by drawing on their newly acquired sources of social capital, particularly the low-skilled migrants we spoke to slowly gained more independence, throwing off the constraints of their initial networks. The high-skilled Lithuanians we spoke to lacked this need for external brokers, because of their access to enabling forms of human and social capital. Indeed, their high mobility and previously established international networks facilitated easier access to the host setting. Low-skilled migrants felt strongly incentivised to develop their human capital, learning the Dutch language and integrating into the Netherlands, whereas high-skilled migrants showed no such interest, and therefore had lower human capital development despite a stronger vantage point. To explain this discrepancy, and explore how our insights can be extended beyond our modest research sample, we engage with prior debates on migration in the following discussion.

Discussion of research implications

This research contributes to migration studies by explaining how social capital is activated towards human capital development amongst the Lithuanian Diaspora. The study represents an empirical contribution by strengthening insights into Lithuanians as a growing group of Eastern European migrants (Metykova 2010). This topic is timely, in view of the growing phenomenon of cross-border mobility and migration (Chort, Gubert, and Senne 2012; McIlwaine 2011), a prime policy concern for the European Union and beyond (European Commission 2013). However, within the migration debate there is also increasing recognition that people’s reasons for migration are highly divergent, ranging from macro-level motives such as political or economic instability in the country of origin, to micro-level motives such as romantic pursuits, family reunification, educational pursuits, and so forth (De Jong and Fawcett 1981; Krieger 2004).

In this vein, scholars have suggested that it makes sense to look at integration not simply as a question of distinct minority migrant groups versus established native communities, but rather as a dynamic interplay between ‘an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants’ (characterised by Vertovec (2007, 1024) as ‘super-diversity’). This perspective emphasises the growing differences between and within ethnic groups, characterised along various dimensions including high- or low-skilled people (as in our study), but also calls for a shift in focus from an ‘ethnic’ lens to a multidimensional lens to interpret migration questions (Crul 2016).

Taking this perspective, it makes sense to study social capital – rather than ethnicity alone – as an important explanatory mechanisms towards understanding why some migrants assimilate into new host settings better than others. In so doing, this study contributes to debates on social capital activation in Diasporic networks (Akcapar 2010; Ghorashi and Boersma 2009; Thaut 2009), providing a more nuanced understanding of the integration drivers and inhibitors among a growing group of migrants.

By explaining how these migrants develop their human capital, our findings break the stereotypical perceptions that low-skilled migrants live in tight-knit Diaspora communities and are not willing to integrate. Prior studies suggest that low-skilled migrants are unwilling, or less likely than high-skilled migrants, to develop their human capital, and are more likely to remain embedded in tight-knit Diaspora migrant networks through their immersion in the informal economy that they tend to organise themselves around (Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993). Instead, the low-skilled migrants we spoke to were in fact highly motivated in their intentions to integrate into the host setting and developing their human capital, more so than high-skilled migrants.

This discrepancy might be explained by different intentions to return to their country of origin, which was negative for the low-skilled, and positive among the high-skilled migrants in our study. Another reason might be related to the Dutch context of our study. Namely, the Lithuanian community in the country is more modest than, for instance, the UK, which amplifies their need to learn Dutch as a way to get by, particularly when they do not command English. This was a big difference between the high- and low-skilled migrants we spoke to: the former relied on their English, therefore felt less of a need to learn Dutch than the latter, and had far greater opportunities to move elsewhere, given their language skills and ability to engage in international networks. In contrast, learning Dutch – spoken only in a handful of countries – was the most evident way for low-skilled migrants to increase their human capital, embedding them more strongly in the Dutch context, but limiting their further mobility (as in Dustmann’s (1999) study of migrants to Germany). Thus, we emphasise the significance of differentiating human capital benefits in accordance with migrants’ personal aspirations and context. However, further research into the activation of social capital towards the accumulation of human capital is clearly called for, to establish whether our findings can be extended beyond our modest research population and particular context, or whether they are exceptional to this particular migrant group.

Our study also yields important implications for migration policy debates that seem to be less informed about the human capital potential among low-skilled migrants, and which might explain in part the failure of policies aimed at facilitating their integration. Therefore, the results of this study could inspire migration policies to be better attuned with the needs of low-skilled migrants, in addition to policies aimed at attracting high-skilled migrants to enrich labour markets (Beaverstock 2012). This might be realised, for instance, by providing easier access to language courses, or establishing state-support networks for migrants in lower status jobs. In fact, in our study this group appeared most committed to their new host setting; therefore, targeted efforts towards enabling forms of social capital might also help them further strengthen their human capital in many ways, benefiting not only the migrants themselves, but also their destination countries.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments by the Editor and two anonymous reviewers, and the generous participation of the research respondents. We are also indebted to Peter Groenewegen and the VU Graduate School of Social Studies for supporting the second author’s Junior Research Fellowship, which helped develop this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.