Migration and Inequalities

1
Migration and Inequalities
Projekt wspólfinansowany ze srodków Unii
Europejskiej w ramach Europejskiego Funduszu
Spolecznego

• Marek Nowak PhD
• marek.nowak_at_amu.edu.pl
• Institute of Sociology AMU

On the base on (Post)transformational Migration.
Inequalities, Welfare State and Horizontal
Mobility (M. Nowak, M. Nowosielski ed.)
2
Why emigrate the banal answer

• The role of economic scarcity in fostering
  migration was especially underlined by the
  neoclassic theory of push factors and pull
  factors. Perceived inequalities, such as the lack
  of a proper job (in relation to others) or bad
  living conditions (more generally), can play the
  role of push factors that make people migrate
  (Lee 1966).

3
What does push factor mean?

• focus more on relative deprivation,
  exacerbated by inequality, as a basic determinant
  of peoples mobility

4
GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in PPS (Purchasing
Power Standard) Index in 2011 (EU-27 100)
GDP (gross domestic product) is an indicator for
a nations economic situation. It reflects the
total value of all goods and services produced
less the value of goods and services used for
intermediate consumption in their production.
Expressing GDP in PPS (purchasing power
standards) eliminates differences in price levels
between countries, and calculations on a per head
basis allows for the comparison of economies
significantly different in absolute size.
5
What does pull factors means?

• Attracting selected groups of the labor force
  because of local/regional economic demand.

6

• What can sociologists suggest?

7

• Structural conditions are only a part of the
  story of migration, particularly because
  differences and inequalities are social facts,
  elements of the shape of modern open societies.

8

• From one side, inequality can be seen as a basic
  element of competitive society (a sine qua non of
  capitalist maximalization). From another, it can
  call up pictures of barriers developing between
  peopleas a consequence of the vertical division
  of labour, and with the consequence that vertical
  mobility tends to decrease as result of social
  barriersand of a gulf between the top and the
  bottom of the society.

9
What could influence the migration behavior?

• The politics which could decrease or increase the
  tension to emigrate
• The construction of welfare relation (the welfare
  policy)
• Past experiences related to horizontal mobility
  (as the cultural framework of mobility -
  generally).
• Acceptability of migrations a strategy (which is
  a part of the social context)
• The intensity of social change - deregulation (in
  the 90s and the first decade of the 21st
  century).

10

• Situational context of Central European migration

11
The systems transformation within the context of
increasing push factors in Central and Eastern
Europe.

• the governments of Poland, Hungary, the Czech
  Republic, and Slovakia were each spending on
  average about 1015 percent of their GDP annually
  on pensions and other social security benefits
  .... This level of expenditure matched or even
  exceeded that of the more developed western
  countries, many of which had been struggling to
  control government spending and to reform their
  social security systems for more than two
  decades (Inglot 2008).

12

• The key moment of the Polish transformation
  process could be the second part of the 90s of
  the 20th century (1998), where began the fast
  reorientation of the Polish system of production
  towards the west European direction (the so
  called Russian crisis ).
• This could be an important moment for explaining
  the factors of the mass emigration in the years
  2006-8.

13
Subsidiarisation as a context of inequalities and
migration

• In some cases there was even a kind of a social
  engineering effort to build the democratic
  states new institutions from the top down,
  rather than from the bottom up. In both the east
  and the west, the key notion in this process may
  be described as an aspect of liberal
  subsidiarization processes. Which means, its
  worth repeating, bringing responsibility for
  functions down to a lower level of authority and
  to the local community.

14

• In the Polish case, and less so in the case of
  the Czech Republic, the darker sides of the
  transformation included the dynamic growth of
  unemployment (in Poland in the first decade of
  the twenty-first century, ten years after the
  start of the transformation, more than 20 of
  labour force was unemployed), and growing
  differentiation (asymmetric increases in
  different social segments, and in different
  positions in class structure) (Tomescu-Dubrow
  2007).

15

• Looking at the basic indicator of social
  inequalitythe Gini coefficientat the beginning
  of the twenty-first century, it is clear that the
  processes of social transformation did not have
  the same trajectories and consequences in all the
  involved countries and societies. Although states
  such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland now have a
  relatively high Gini coefficient far above
  the European average, the position of the Czech
  Republic is different.

16

• Finally, we observed the different trajectories
  of social polarization (inequalities)
• in consequence of the deregulation and
  marketisation in different national/social
  contexts. These tend to affect the different
  scale of international labor flow (hipotesis).

17
The Polish case
18
Migration before accession to the UE

• Before accession, in the terminology of
  Grabowska-Lusinska and Okólski, there was an
  incomplete migration which was invisible from
  one side, and which from the other side
  represented a sort of refrigerator of a segment
  of labour power endangered by unemployment
  (Grabowska-Lusinska, Okólski 2009, pp. 39). They
  mentioned three main types of migration (a)
  circulation migrations (b) a short period
  migration (c) long term migration (emigration in
  formal nomenclature).

19
Polish migration after the accession to the EU

• The migration and emigration (more than 12 months
  abroad) was much more often, much longer, much
  more legal, much more common

20
The typical Polish migrant to the UK or Ireland
after 2004
21

• Polish migrant to the UK or Ireland after 2004
  relatively young (based on Polish legal
  statistics, BAEL/OBM data), having in the case of
  pre-accession migration an average age of 32
  years, or in later waves a little more than 31
  years more likely to be a man than a woman (183
  men to every 100 women) possessing greater
  experience in the labour market (relative to the
  demographic structure of Polish society) than
  that of the average 2029 year-old
  (Grabowska-Lusinska, Okólski 2009, pp. 97).

22

• The reality of migration processes in different
  countries of the region seemed to be different.

23
Finally

• The migration factors seems to not belong to the
  one simple scheme of social reaction, which
  suggests both social and cultural answers (than
  just simply the material deprivation picture).
• Reconceptualisation tends to move from
  structural condition (of the differences in
  income) to the processual relations based on
  socio-cultural facts.
• Possible elements of an explanation might
  consider the questions of how market-oriented
  were particular post communist societies, and how
  successful was the gestalt switch. As we know
  from social surveys, respondents orientations
  are sometimes very different, and may change over
  time.

24
The way in which we could conceptualized motives
of emigration

• We can describe two aspects which may have an
  influence on the social mobility
• 1) the personal aspect, which relates to
  individual rationality, individual motives, the
  individual condition of the person, as well as
  the persons social attitudes, education, life
  expectations, and so on and
• 2) the structural aspect (i.e. what are called
  push factors in the theory of migration
  behaviour), which in the case of Central and
  Eastern Europe can be very close to the concept
  of Durkheim-Merton anomy, or Sztompkas
  transformational sociocultural trauma (Sztompka
  2000), and which describes common labour
  relations, typical social mobility patterns, and
  institutional design.

25
The Eurequal project

• The purpose of Eurequal was to create and
  disseminate knowledge that would facilitate the
  achievement of greater social equality between
  individuals, social cohesiveness in societies,
  democratic and market development, and the
  broader integration of Europe.
• http//eurequal.politics.ox.ac.uk/

26
The main questions of Eurequal

• How can we adequately measure the multifaceted
  character of social inequality?
• What are the factors at the individual level that
  are most associated with the patterns of social
  inequality?
• What characteristics of the economic, political
  and institutional arrangements of nations have
  the greatest positive and negative impact on
  social inequality?

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• What are the consequences of social inequality
  for individual and household economic behaviour,
  in particular for intra and inter-generational
  social mobility?
• What are the consequences of social inequality
  for political attitudes, especially towards other
  social groups, and for political behaviour?
• What are the consequences of social inequality
  for economic growth, democratic consolidation and
  international integration?

28
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29
Table 2. Average answers to the question of the
acceptability of emigration (five point Likert
scale, from definitely accepted to definitely
not accepted).  
Country/ descriptive statistics Average Standard deviation Pearson correlation
Belarus 2.73 1.776 0.386
Bulgaria 2.47 1.479 0.236
Czech Republic 2.21 1.282 0.115
Estonia 2.26 1.318 0.258
Hungary 2.82 1.443 0.386
Latria 2.21 1.204 0.250
Lithuania 2.51 1.419 0.269
Moldova 2.37 1.424 0.116
Poland 2.09 1.139 0.185
Romania 2.32 1.018 0.364
Russia 2.81 1.751 0.326
Slovakia 3.62 1.224 0.208
Ukraine 2.16 1.347 0.352
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Answer to the question have you ever worked
abroad? (N, and in )
Country Yes No Country Yes
Belarus 58 942 Moldova 184 858
Belarus 5.8 94.2 Moldova 17.7 82.3
Bulgaria 63 914 Poland 213 1268
Bulgaria 6.4 93.6 Poland 14.4 85.6
Czech Rep. 81 910 Romania 126 1366
Czech Rep. 8.2 91.8 Romania 8.4 91.6
Estonia 149 903 Russia 70 1930
Estonia 14.2 85.8 Russia 3.5 96.5
Hungary 48 982 Slovakia 159 873
Hungary 4.7 95.3 Slovakia 15.4 84.6
Latvia 106 895 Ukraine 85 1299
Latvia 10.6 89.4 Ukraine 6.1 93.9
Lithuania 111 889
Lithuania 11.1 88.9
31
Have you ever worked abroad? (N, and in
percentages)
Moldova Moldova Moldova Poland Poland Poland Slovakia Slovakia Slovakia
male female all male female all male female all
gt 25 N 17 10 27 16 10 26 17 20 37
gt 25 age 63.0 37.0 100.0 61.5 38.5 100.0 45.9 54.1 100.0
gt 25 sex 15.6 13.3 14.7 11.1 14.5 12.2 21.3 25.3 23.3
gt 25 all 9.2 5.4 14.7 7.5 4.7 12.2 10.7 12.6 23.3
2637 N 37 27 64 42 21 63 24 43 67
2637 age 57.8 42.2 100.0 66.7 33.3 100.0 35.8 64.2 100.0
2637 sex 33.9 36.0 34.8 29.2 30.4 29.6 30.0 54.4 42.1
2637 all 20.1 14.7 34.8 19.7 9.9 29.6 15.1 27.0 42.1
3849 N 25 23 48 35 15 50 26 11 37
3849 age 52.1 47.9 100.0 70.0 30.0 100.0 70.3 29.7 100.0
3849 sex 22.9 30.7 26.1 24.3 21.7 23.5 32.5 13.9 23.3
3849 all 13.6 12.5 26.1 16.4 7.0 23.5 16.4 6.9 23.3
5061 N 23 12 35 31 10 41 12 2 14
5061 age 65.7 34.3 100.0 75.6 24.4 100.0 85.7 14.3 100.0
5061 sex 21.1 16.0 19.0 21.5 14.5 19.2 15.0 2.5 8.8
5061 All 12.5 6.5 19.0 14.6 4.7 19.2 7.5 1.3 8.8
62 lt N gen. N 7 3 10 20 13 33 1 3 4
62 lt N gen. age 70.0 30.0 100.0 60.6 39.4 100.0 25.0 75.0 100.0
62 lt N gen. sex 6.4 4.0 5.4 13.9 18.8 15.5 1.3 3.8 2.5
62 lt N gen. all 3.8 1.6 5.4 9.4 6.1 15.5 .6 1.9 2.5
62 lt N gen. 109 75 184 144 69 213 80 79 159
62 lt N gen. all 59.2 40.8 100.0 67.6 32.4 100.0 50.3 49.7 100.0
32

• Table 8. Standard deviation and average answers
  (Likert Scale from 1 (agreement) to 5
  (disagreement)) to questions on expected
  government intervention (What in your opinion is
  a duty of the state?) in 13 European countries
  (the five lowest values of standard deviation are
  indicated by the numbers in brackets, 1 being the
  lowest).

33
Country code Gov. /Job Gov. /health care Gov. /old people Gov. /unemployed Gov. /housing Gov. /childcare
Belarus (average) 1.55 1.40 1.39 2.55 2.68 1.72
Standard deviation 1.079 .997 1.059 1.646 1.934 1.275
Bulgaria (average) 1.58 1.23 1.21 1.72 1.99 1.69
Standard deviation .925 .594 (4) .584 1.050 (2) 1.326 1.236
Czech Rep. (average) 1.68 1.22 1.33 2.68 2.54 1.49
Standard deviation 1.116 0.548 (3) .791 1.605 1.631 .874
Estonia (average) 1.81 1.26 1.27 2.15 2.19 1.64
Standard deviation 1.152 .654 (5) .692 1.459 1.587 1.278
Hungary (average) 1.49 1.29 1.33 1.99 2.09 1.38
Standard deviation .806 (2) .659 .766 1.199 1.292 .803
Latvia (average) 1.51 1.19 1.21 2.01 1.62 1.39
Standard deviation .956 .544 (2) .649 1.299 1.040 .895
Lithuania (average) 1.72 1.36 1.44 1.97 2.25 1.85
Standard deviation 1.058 .721 .892 1.468 1.777 1.426
Moldova (average) 1.43 1.39 1.42 1.59 1.65 1.54
Standard deviation .899 (5) .837 .872 1.021 (1) 1.003 1.024
Poland (average) 1.48 1.25 1.29 2.14 2.09 1.60
Standard deviation .888 (4) .583 (3) .639 1.541 1.562 1.124
Romania (average) 1.46 1.24 1.24 1.57 1.69 1.50
Standard deviation .821 (3) .745 .788 1.071 (4) 1.152 1.048
Russia (average) 1.47 1.29 1.25 2.24 2.16 1.56
Standard deviation 1.002 .751 .713 1.665 1.772 1.178
Slovakia (average) 1.52 1.21 1.25 1.98 2.00 1.46
Standard deviation .925 .613 .694 1.068 (3) 1.296 .934
Ukraine (average) 1.21 1.16 1.15 1.91 2.00 1.36
Standard deviation .487 (1) .433 (1) .459 1.470 1.674 .788
34
Final statement

• I.
• As we know (based on the EUREQUAL data), in
  postcommunist countries the role of the state in
  relation to problems of employment, healthcare,
  and the care of old people being a more active
  one is relatively commonly accepted. Expectations
  sometimes tend to construct a whole complex
  etatist syndrome (as in Hungary, for example), or
  sometimes it may split into a different vision
  when the problems of employment, healthcare, or
  (as in the Polish case) pensions play the crucial
  role.

35

• welfare policy arguments and institutions
  exacerbate or ameliorate existing social
  cleavages and conflicts (Glass, Marquart-Pyatt,
  2007), which in my interpretation may in certain
  social environments result in more or less high
  migration tendencies.

36

• II.
• Inappropriate solutions in the welfare regime
  may be one of important factors which can
  increase structural pressure, but at the same
  time there are no universal rules, and there
  arein my opinionmore conditions which
  distinguish the positions of the citizens of,
  say, Estonia (where migration is still at a low
  level), from its neighbour Latvia, where the
  level of migration is significantly higher.

37

• III.
• The second important factor relates to the more
  conscious aspects, an element of the comparison
  of the chances that the whole system will make
  progress (that is, will in the future result in
  improved conditions for the individual), with the
  possibilities of misfortunes in the local
  community where potential migrants live, all of
  which mayonce againstrengthen or weaken the
  push (to migrate).

38

• III.
• The third aspect is related
  to the cultural
  process
  of internalizing the exit
  
  strategy not voice in
  
  Hirschman concept as an element of
  universal ideology which creates visions and
  gives the tools to solve individual problems
  outside of the context of one society. This is
  strong in Poland.

39

• This third aspect could be either analysed as a
  much more longue durée factor, and in this sense
  reinforces the more general atmosphere of
  emigration as a solution in the way of the
  diffusion of innovations, where migration
  experiences are collected in individual
  histories, and become an element of the culture.
  This third element is in my opinion relatively

40
Politics or policy reasons for emigration (Iveta
Kešane, Emigration as a Strategy of Everyday
Politics the Case of Latvian Labour Emigrants in
Ireland)

• The free movement of labour gave a legal
  opportunity to many Latvians to go abroad in
  order to earn their livelihood, to provide for
  their families, and also to find self-esteem and
  fulfilment.

41

• An analysis of the post-Soviet societies by
  Sztompka (2004) demonstrates that the period
  following transition shows that much was
  unexpected about the change, and that the society
  was not prepared for it. This is despite the fact
  that Latvians largely welcomed the collapse of
  the socialist regime and the transition towards
  the west. In reference to Durkheim, Sztompka
  refers to this condition as the anomie of
  success (Sztompka, 2004 157, 158)

42
The politics/policy way of conceptualising
emigration

• the question of governance becomes the question
  of self-governance in the discourse and technique
  of emigration.

43
Understanding of power and self relation to the
power (governmentality)

• governmentality implies the relation of the
  self to itself, and I intend this concept of
  governmentality to cover the whole range of
  practices that constitute, define, organize, and
  instrumentalize the strategies that individuals
  in their freedom can use... (Foucault, 2003 41)
  From the 1984 interview, Concordia, Revisita
  internacional de filosophia 6.

44
Interviews

• I gave birth to my youngest daughter when I was
  forty... she finished Gaujienas Secondary School,
  and then I understood that theres nothing she
  can do in Aluksne. Theres nothing to do anywhere
  (HYAN)
•  
• I had a good marriage, good education, the
  children were growing. We were hoping that we
  would graduate from university and have better
  salaries. And then everything went to rack and
  ruin (SLRH)

45
and other

• We paid an employment agency to find a job. But
  it was all totally wrong. In our rural area,
  where we used to live, two big fish processing
  factories went bankrupt. That was just because
  there were no cheaters with golden necklaces
  there, for example, investors, shareholders, the
  ones able to subordinate. A lot of money has been
  lost, everyone suffered financial losses. Maybe
  that is the reason why...There were practically
  no ways out anymore... (LMNF)

46

• I had entered the Polytechnic Institute and
  graduated from the Technical University the name
  of institution was changed after Latvia regained
  independence. That was the last year that people
  studied for five years ... And we were the last
  graduates who were neither bachelors nor masters.
  Also there were no appointments to jobs,
  nothinglook for a job yourself! And at that
  moment nobody needed anything anymore and it was
  like the Russians used to say, kupi i praday buy
  and sell. The most important thing was to trade,
  to launder money, and at that moment nobody
  thought about specialists anymore (KGFC)

47

• I was working in the fish processing factories as
  a head engineer. I had a disagreement with the
  employer. It was an issue with a lawyer and
  all...There was nowhere to complain. There was
  just one solution to find a job somewhere else
  back at that time I went to Riga to look for a
  job somewhere. ... In Riga, they told me that
  Im too old and they cant take me. We need
  young, forward looking people! Then they told me
  that they didnt need me (LMNF)

48
Finally

• labour emigration from Latvia, at the time of
  the transition, was for some of the emigrants a
  type of protest against these new ways of living
  and the way they were articulated in Latvia, and
  that emigration provided a mode of exit for
  these people. Moses (2007) .

49

• The analysis of emigrants self-problematization
  at the time of their decision demonstrates that
  it is a strategy of everyday politics for the
  reason that it attempts to resists and evade
  limitations set by the mode of state governance
  and instead increasingly relying on self
  government.

50
Emigration and inequalities in the destination
country (Guglielmo Meardi, Labour mobility, union
immobility? Trade unions migration in the EU)

• Inequalities and migration in the EU labor market
  is it the problem?

51

• In debates on the liberalization of the movement
  of services in the EU (the so-called Bolkenstein
  Directive), on freedom of movement, and in legal
  cases concerning social dumping in the European
  Court of Justice, migrants from the new EU member
  states are often portrayed as a threat to
  established worker rights in Western Europe.

52
The case off trade unions
53
The context of percept inequalities

• Current debates on labour markets are frequently
  framed within an insider-outsider model.
• Typically, insiders would be middle-aged male
  local workers belonging to the ethnic majority,
  with no disability, while the most typical
  outsiders are migrants. To guarantee the
  perpetuation of their advantageous position,
  insiders have a number of institutional
  devicesthe most typical of which, it is argued,
  is the trade union.

54
The diagnosis from the past

• The insider-outsider idea of migration is rooted
  in structuralist conceptions of the labour market
  of Piore (1979), who argued that capitalist
  economies require continuous flows of new
  migrants in order to maintain occupational
  hierarchies, that is to provide labour for
  low-prestige occupations (marginal jobs). Without
  migrants, employers would have to pay local
  workers considerably higher salaries to take
  these positions, which in turn would have caused
  demands for higher pay from workers in mainstream
  jobs, who would not accept being paid as little
  as those in marginal jobs.

55
Migrants are necessary for keeping salary low,
and balancing prices of labor marketShould
trade unions be against migrants (from local
laborers perspectives)?
56

• The distinction between insiders and outsiders
  varies by country, and among industrialized
  economies it is assumed to be strongest in
  Southern European and Continental welfare
  states, especially Germany (Ferrera, Hemerijck,
  and Rhodes 2000).
• but there is the contr tendency...

57
The pressure of illegal economy

• Watts (2002) reiterates the point on
  internationalization in the case of the shifts of
  French, Spanish, and Italian unions towards open
  migration policies. She also adds two more
  factors the importance of the illegal economy
  (especially in Italy and Spain), with the
  consequent union interest in channelling migrants
  towards legal status and organizational needs in
  the face of declining membership

58
Restriction policy

• Although they did not formally take a position
  against enlargement or against the principle of
  freedom of movement, some western trade unions,
  especially the German and Austrian ones,
  supported the introduction of transition periods
  as protection for the host country labor markets

59
Polish plumber is coming to the stage

• The mythical figure of the Polish plumber was a
  crucial factor in the French rejection of the
  European Constitution in the referendum of May
  2005. Real tensions emerged in the transport
  sector, and major disputes occurred in both
  transport and construction (sectors where labour
  mobility is a normal occurrence).

60
Strategy exit or voice

• Even if the voice of employees in the new
  member states has remained feeble, their massive
  exit has forced employers, and to a lesser extent
  governments, to introduce important concessions,
  leading to higher than expected wage growth and
  some improvements in employment conditions.

61

• The exit and the voice is back

62
The integration perspective

• innovative practices such as cooperation with
  ethnic associations (e.g. with the Polish
  Catholic Association in Birmingham) and the
  setting up of Polish-language sections (in
  Southampton and Glasgow)
• focused on two particularly important antidotes
  to migrant exploitation provision of information
  on employment rights, and skillsincluding
  recognition qualifications and English language
  skills.

63

• The most significant activity has been the
  cooperation with eastern European trade unions
  (mostly Polish, given the critical mass of
  Polish migration), leading to the posting of
  organizers from the Polish trade unions
  Solidarity and OPZZ to UK and Ireland, which in
  turn facilitated the recruitment of activists and
  organizers among migrants.

64

• Most notably, major developments have occurred
  in cross-border cooperation, especially in the
  border regions, through the Interregional Trade
  Union Councils (seven of them involve Austrian or
  German trade unions and partners from the new
  member states). In 2006, for instance, DGB,
  Ver.di and Solidarity jointly protested in the
  border region against a megastore that was
  violating worker rights (Szewczyk and Unterschütz
  2009). In May 2009, a Polish-German trade union
  forum was launched in Gdansk.

65
The different situations is in services

• What is not migration

66
Final statement

• Migration provides more opportunities than just
  the movement of services. In particular,
  migration seems to make it easier for trade
  unions to humanize foreign workers and develop
  solidarities with them, than does the simple
  existence of remote foreign subsidiaries.
  Regarding the freedom of movement of services,
  the opportunities for socialization are minimal,
  and the only positive effects come indirectly
  from broader European labour socialization, in
  which nationalism tends to be sidelined.