Highly skilled and highly mobile? Examining gendered and ethnicised labour market conditions for migrant women in STEM-professions in Germany

ABSTRACT

For the past decades, most Western countries have curtailed low-skilled immigration and adopted policies encouraging highly skilled migration. Accordingly, the German government began in 2000 to initiate changes in policy and legislation to encourage skilled professionals particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-professions to take up employment in Germany. Although highly skilled migrants are privileged with regard to education, competencies, and abilities, the article argues that highly skilled migrant women’s transition into the labour market and their work performance are determined by the gendered and ethnicised conditions still prevalent in STEM fields. The paper thereby draws on qualitative interviews with highly skilled migrant women who migrated to the second largest city in Germany: Hamburg. The findings show that migrant women face a traditionally highly gender-segregated sector. Furthermore, they are confronted with ethnicised ascriptions that contribute to ‘othering’ processes, which impact their professional identity and slow down the transferral of their cultural capital. Yet, the majority of the interviewed women developed a strong local attachment and sense of belonging that fostered their social integration and counteracted experienced discrimination in the workplace. As a result they were less willing to uproot themselves again and thus contrast the popular image of being ‘birds of passage’.

KEYWORDS:

• Highly skilled women migrants
• STEM professions Germany
• gender
• ethnicity

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Ajay Bailey and the anonymous referees for their valuable contributions to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 STEM refers to fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

2 The subproject represents a part of the joint research project, ‘The Integration of Highly Qualified Women Migrants in Germany’s Labor Market’ that was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the European Social Funds (ESF).

3 Initially, a quota of 10,000 green cards was agreed upon, which was extended to a total of 20,000. However, the anticipated influx stayed away and only 17,111 persons entered Germany under this provision. For more details and a thorough analysis of the Green Card initiative see Pethe (2006).

4 The term Spätaussiedler refers to individuals with a German ethnic background from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. After the collapse of the former Soviet Union migration flows increased with a peak in 1990 when almost 400,000 entered Germany (see OECD 2007).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) from 2009 until 2011.