Abstract This article explores how perceptions of welfare regimes shape aspired lifestyles, understandings of the good life, and (im)mobility aspirations among individuals with disadvantaged social positions in Tangier, Morocco. By comparing notions of welfare in the lifestyle migration and the welfare migration literatures, the study challenges taken-for-granted assumptions that relative privilege or social mobility in the contexts of destination is a sine qua non condition to put lifestyle ahead of economic considerations in (im)mobility decisions. The findings, based on the analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews, a survey of 500 Moroccan men and women, and fieldwork observations, highlights the agency of individuals in disadvantaged positions, who prefer living where their lifestyles align more closely with their moral values. The article contributes to the lifestyle in migration approach by highlighting the subjectivities of entangled lifestyle and welfare considerations in (im)mobility decision-making. It invites to pay more attention to how meanings and social categorisation processes that differentiate between more or less advantaged individuals shapes the framing of research on lifestyle and (im)mobility. It also proposes that future studies and policy making understand welfare as more than a structure and consider lifestyle beyond its experiential dimension.
Abstract What factors are associated with internal displacement and return after a sudden foreign invasion? The literature on conflict-driven displacement has primarily focused on how civil wars affect external migration, identifying social networks and exposure to violence as the primary reasons for displacement. A rapid invasion by a foreign power may paint a different picture. At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, millions fled to other parts of Ukraine or abroad. As Ukraine recaptured territory and the front lines stabilized, many returned. This study assesses the demographics of IDPs and returnees through a survey conducted in Ukraine in May and June 2022. IDPs were more educated and less likely to take the survey in Russian. Respondents who had more favorable attitudes about the incumbent president and held anti-democratic views were more likely to return after displacement. IDPs who left and then returned were more likely to be younger and more educated than respondents who never left. The findings suggest the effects of income, networks, violence, education, language, and political opinion on both displacement and return during rapid international invasions are somewhat similar to civil conflicts, but are also more complex than previously thought.
Abstract This study explores the critical implications of the absence of Cross-Border Pension Portability (CBPP) schemes for Ghanaian migrants residing in the Bronx, New York, illuminating the complexity of their return migration intentions in the absence of CBPP. Drawing on neoclassical economic labour migration theory and the social protection theory, we built a foundation on how past integrational challenges increase the chances of return migration and the significance of CBPP as asafety net for migrant's accumulated social security. We conducted in-depth interviews with 28 Ghanaian migrants to examine how these past integrational challenges, which have already increased their chances of return, are compounded by the absence of a CBPP agreement, which causes a fear of losing their pension benefit on return. The study examines their experiences as they make such complex decisions towards their retirement. Our findings reveal that many migrants prolong their stay in the U.S. to obtain citizenship, which is essential for accessing pension benefits abroad without restrictions. This extended stay disrupts their retirement plans and compels them to extend their work life further to supplement their meagre pension benefit, which is a repercussion of their past low-paying jobs. Migrants face several challenges when deciding to leave the U.S. without acquiring citizenship. Those who choose to return to their home countries must visit the U.S. every six months to maintain their eligibility for benefits. This requirement can lead to significant costs, as they need to cover travel expenses and accommodations. As a result, a large portion of their benefits may be redirected to settle these conditions for their pension eligibility. This research contributes to the literature by highlighting how implementing CBPP could alleviate these burdens, enhance migrant well-being, and facilitate smoother transitions back to migrants’ home countries. Ultimately, we argue that CBPP is essential for addressing humanitarian concerns and the economic implications for migrants and the host country.
Dealing with these situations, educators must approach them with sensitivity and take the right steps to handle them. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of the teacher and the strategies they use in handling children with speech delays. The subjects of this study were preschool teachers who directly worked with such children. The data was collected through interviews and observations. The qualitative data showed that participants faced various challenges. The researcher concluded that the teacher's role is to create a conducive learning environment, encourage children to participate actively in activities, facilitate children to interact and cooperate in small groups, make learning plans, conduct continuous assessments, and create reports on children's individual development and learning. Teachers should use various learning methods, educational media, and provide positive feedback to students..
Education, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract This study investigates the role of migration background in the saving behavior of youth, with a focus on immigrant generation, national origin, and the influence of cultural and socioeconomic factors. Drawing on a nationally representative dataset of over 28,000 secondary school students in the Netherlands, we employ binary logit models to analyze two dimensions of saving behavior: the likelihood of saving money and the propensity to use bank accounts for savings. Our findings reveal significant disparities in saving behavior among immigrant and non-immigrant youth. Migrant youth are less likely to save overall, and when they do, they exhibit a reduced inclination to use bank accounts for their savings. Furthermore, the study uncovers nuanced patterns within the immigrant youth population. First-generation immigrant youth display lower levels of saving and bank account usage compared to their second-generation counterparts, particularly to those with one foreign-born parent. Distinct national origin effects are observed, as Turkish and Moroccan youth exhibit reduced likelihoods of saving, particularly through bank accounts, compared to Surinamese and Dutch Antillean youth. The results also indicate that the disparities in saving behavior across migration background, immigrant generation, and national origin are partly explained by socioeconomic and cultural forces. Socio-economic status and parental education emerge as key determinants, with higher parental socio-economic resources and education levels positively associated with youth saving behavior and bank account usage. Additionally, religious affiliation, particularly among Muslim youth, contributes to variations in saving behavior due to the prohibition of interest-bearing transactions.
Abstract Citizenship and residency laws in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries developed during a similar time period, with similar influences, and as a result had common characteristics. In recent years, this has begun to change, with new pathways to permanent residency and citizenship developing in the region. This paper takes a comparative case study approach to analyzing the policy changes in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and then explores the implications thereof. Broadening the pathways for permanent residency and citizenship offers opportunities (e.g., reversing financial outflows, increasing domestic investment and savings, attracting foreign direct investment and skilled talent) while it also presents risks (e.g., contesting traditional forms of belonging and entitlement, reducing social cohesion, and creating new forms of inequalities). While new pathways have indeed emerged, these pathways are designed for specific types of people, defined by the criteria or requirements of them. The unique policies of the three countries imply unique directions for the economies, demographic transitions, and socio-political cultures of the region.
Giulia Corti, Daniela Bellani, Antonella Guarneri
et al.
Among the factors related to marital disruption, age assortative mating (who marries whom in terms of age) has received less attention than others. In this study, we study the association between partners’ age difference and marital disruption in Italy, a late-comer country in divorce legislation and highly conservative in its culture and institutions. We also show how this association varies across marriage cohorts. We employ data from “Families, social subjects and life cycle” (FSS), collected in 2016 by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat). We analyse micro-level retrospective information on first-marriage histories between the 1970s and the 1990s through an event-history approach. Results show that age hypogamous couples (where the woman is older than the man) have a higher likelihood of marital disruption compared to couples where the wife is the same age or younger than her husband. However, this higher risk reduces among the youngest cohorts. We discuss the possible drivers of this change in light of cultural changes that occurred in recent decades.
* This article belongs to a special issue on “Changes in Educational Homogamy and Its Consequences”.
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract Over the years, some scholars have not only written against the concept of immigrant integration but have called for its rejection and abandonment. Critics argue that the concept is normative, objectifies others, mirrors outmoded imaginary of society, orients towards methodological nationalism, and a narrow emphasis on immigrants in the forces defining integration progression. Nonetheless, the concept continues to receive academic and policy attention. Against the backdrop of this polarized view, this paper raises an important question relating to the benefit or otherwise of writing against the concept of integration in the field of integration studies. Specifically, the paper asks: Is it appropriate to write against and reject the concept of integration? The paper responds to this question from a provocative conceptual perspective. Here, the paper argues that when the concept is purged of its inherent criticisms and rather reconceptualize as a wicked concept, it still offers a unique analytical spectrum with which scholars can approach several substantive critical questions regarding immigrants’ integration.
Luisa Salaris, Viviana Anghel, Giulia Contu
et al.
The Covid-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on health systems, on many economic sectors and on the labour market. This critical situation is also accompanied by social destabilisation, which has exacerbated inequalities and severely affected the most disadvantaged population groups, such as migrant workers. This study provides insights into the consequences of the first wave and the lockdown period in Spring 2020 of the Covid-19 pandemic on Romanians living in Italy, using data collected by the International Association Italy-Romania ‘Cuore Romeno’, within a project financed by the Romanian Department for Diaspora and developed to support actions while strengthening the link with Romanian institutions during the pandemic. Findings show that, during the lockdown, two opposite situations occurred among Romanians. Workers in the ‘key sector’ become indispensable and experienced only small changes, while others lost their job or experienced a worsening of working conditions, with lower wages or an increase in working hours. Most workers chose to stay in Italy, relying on their savings or the support of the Italian government. Job losses, not having new employment, and having limited savings all influenced the decision of a smaller group to return to Romania. In conclusion, the analysis suggests that measures adopted should take into consideration that the Covid-19 pandemic might disproportionally hit population groups such as migrants, women, young people and temporary and unprotected workers, particularly those employed in trade, hospitality and agriculture.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Over the past decade, asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Italy were accommodated in reception facilities located not only in large metropolitan centres but also in Small-medium Towns and Rural Areas (STRAs). Italy’s reception system evolved quickly to face the peaks of asylum applications, especially in the 2015-2017 period. At the same time, the changes in Italy’s reception policies were pushed by the increased polarisation in the asylum debate, which, in turn, has led to great heterogeneity in the development of reception practices.
This paper argues that the reception-territory nexus is a critical dimension to focus on when investigating the implications connected to the arrival and establishment of asylum seekers and refugees. This appears particularly true in STRAs where the reception system provided new resources that, when well-managed, showed transformative potential, developing virtuous interconnections with the local territories and communities. These virtuous interconnections have, however, been affected by the continuous changes in reception policies and came to a critical juncture in 2018, when the so-called Security Decree entered into force. While further modifications are currently underway, such legislation profoundly affected the Italian reception system’s functioning and working principles, creating new frictions and tensions among institutional actors and within the local governance of the reception system itself. We argue that the reform contributed to disrupting, both materially and symbolically, the previous virtuous combination of refugee inclusion and local development, especially in STRAs.
Our situated qualitative analysis – carried out between 2019 and 2020 through discursive in-depth interviews – investigates the interconnections between territory and reception in three small to medium-sized towns and rural areas before and after this regulatory shift. It does so by introducing a novel analytic framework, focusing on symbolic and material aspects within and around reception. The analysis suggests that the stress and disruptions connected to the regulatory changes have had a negative impact on the internal organisation of the reception as well as on the refugees’ inclusion and on the chances of local development.
* This article belongs to a special issue on "Refugee Migration to Europe – Challenges and Potentials for Cities and Regions".
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Marc Luy, Markus Sauerberg, Magdalena Muszyńska-Spielauer
et al.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused an increase in mortality in 2020 with a resultant decrease in life expectancy in most countries around the world. In Germany, the reduction in life expectancy at birth between 2019 and 2020 was comparatively small, at -0.20 years. The decrease was stronger among men than among women (-0.24 vs. -0.13 years) and in eastern rather than in western Germany (-0.36 vs. -0.16 years). Men in eastern Germany experienced the biggest decline in life expectancy at birth (-0.41 years). For western German men, the decline was less pronounced (-0.19 years). Among women, the decline in life expectancy at birth was also greater in eastern (-0.25 years) than in western Germany (-0.10 years). As a result of these developments, the differences in life expectancy between the two parts of Germany, and between women and men, increased compared with the previous year. Life expectancy at age 65 decreased more strongly than life expectancy at birth for both sexes and in all regions. This reflects the fact that it was mainly older age groups that were affected by the increase in mortality in 2020. This paper provides further insights into mortality changes in 2020, based on age decomposition and an analysis of lifespan inequality. We conclude that the population in eastern Germany was hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 than the population in the western Germany.
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
A handful of studies have used Facebook’s advertisement platform – Facebook Ads Manager – to recruit migrants to online surveys. The main challenge facing migration scholars in designing effective advertisements has been to identify and accurately target migrants on Facebook. Researchers have used proxies, such as users’ previous residence abroad, language(s) or interests, to infer their migration status. Despite some progress, there remains a need to better document and reflect critically on the accuracy of targeting migrants using such proxies. Contrary to studies which relied on users’ previous residence abroad, this study used migrants’ language (Polish) to target and recruit survey participants from among Polish migrants in Norway, Sweden and the UK. Focusing on a single migrant group across three countries, the goal of this article is to assess the accuracy of a targeting strategy which relied primarily on users’ command of a language as an indicator of their migration background. Comparing the results against official migration statistics and the results reported in similar studies, the article provides a compelling case for researchers to prioritise users’ language, rather than previous residence abroad, as the proxy for migration background for migrants whose language, such as Polish, is confined to the borders of a single nation state.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract This commentary discusses the scope of institutionalization by providing a regional dimension of migration studies. A pivotal weakness of the article is its lack of understanding of Asian migration scholarship which has thrived in the past two decades and has been a great impetus for the development of migration studies.
Recent research has reported that an increasing number of migrants in Norway are concentrated in the low-skilled sectors of the labour market, irrespective of their educational background, thus facilitating the formation of migrant niches in the long term. Despite the growing body of literature that raises the problem of downward professional mobility and deskilling among migrant populations, little scholarly attention has been paid to migrants’ struggles and vulnerabilities as a result of underemployment. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews, this article explores the common experience of habitus mismatch and suffering among Poles who have worked below their level of competence or professional experience since migrating to Norway. By analysing subjective experiences of downward professional and social mobility and the conflict between valued and stigmatised identities, the article examines the various habitus mismatches that contribute to suffering in downwardly mobile Polish migrants.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract This paper argues that perceptions towards asylum seekers are shaped by both media representation as well as lived experiences in and around asylum accommodation. Drawing on Lefebvre’s spatial triad, the paper aims at disentangling the conceived, perceived and lived spaces of asylum accommodation in order to understand asylum accommodation as a space that is produced and re-produced in everyday life. The paper discusses the case of the Grandhotel Cosmopolis (GHC), a prominent example of local innovation in asylum accommodation located in southern Germany. It compares and contrasts the GHC’ media representation in national and local news media with local residents’ evaluation and direct experiences with this project and its effects on how asylum seekers are perceived. The results of the media analysis highlight a difference between a national ‘utopian’ framing and a local ‘experiment’ framing of the GHC. Local residents’ direct experiences proved influential in their evaluation of the project, yet could not overrule dominant media representations of asylum seekers. The paper concludes by suggesting that the GHC’ relative openness produces a space which allows for contact and familiarization between local residents and asylum seekers, yet that dominant framings of asylum seekers as criminals or victims also contributed to a perceived closedness of its space and discouraged contact and familiarization.
Bulgarian migration to the UK has gradually increased since the country’s EU accession and the removal of barriers to free movement of labour across the EU. The sustained popularity of the UK amongst those dreaming for a fresh start through migration, despite the hostility faced by Bulgarian immigrants, poses a paradox that cannot be explained with the ‘push–pull’ and cost–benefit calculation models prevailing in migration research. This article proposes a more balanced understanding of migration motivations on the basis of would-be migrants’ own perceptions. Drawing on biographical interviews with self-ascribed ‘ordinary people’ with long-term plans for settling in the UK, I shed light on individuals’ imaginings and expectations of life after migration. Firstly, I analyse the notion of ‘survival’ through which my informants articulated frustrations with their precarious financial situation, their inferior social and symbolic positioning within society and their inability to partake in forms of consumption and lifestyle that would allow them to experience a sense of social advancement. I then explore would-be migrants’ imaginings of life in the UK (and ‘the West’) which depict an idealised ‘normality’ of life, in which they conveyed longings for security and predictability of life, social justice and working-class dignity and respectability. These insights into people’s disappointment, desperation and disillusionment with a precarious present help us to understand the continuous construction of an ‘imaginary West’ as an ideal ‘elsewhere’, in the search of which migrants are ready to undergo hardship and stigmatisation. By engaging with the existing debates in migration studies and literature on Bulgarian migration, this article exposes the deficiencies of economic reductionism, which presents migration decision-making as a conscious, rational and calculative act and, instead, demonstrates that, very often, people are led by dreams and idealisations that are reflective of their emotions and life-worlds.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration