Український науковий журнал

ОСВІТА РЕГІОНУ

ПОЛІТОЛОГІЯ ПСИХОЛОГІЯ КОМУНІКАЦІЇ

Університет "Україна"
Всеукраїнська асоціація політичних наук (ВАПН)

Occupational concentration of Ukrainian immigrants in Spain and Portugal





                Ivanna Temirova, PhD student of Faculty of History, of the Donetsk National University

УДК 325.14

 

У даній статті викладені результати дослідження взаємозв'язку між сектором праці, в якому задіяні іммігранти, статевим поділом та впливом цих змінних на вірогідність успішної інтеграції в суспільство приймаючої країни.

Ключові слова: сектор праці, статевий поділ, інтеграція, рівень життя, адаптація, низькокваліфіковані мігранти, рівень освіти, «видимі» та «тіньові» типи праці

 

В данной статье представлены результаты исследования взаимосвязи между сектором трудоустройства, в котором задействованы иммигранты, гендерным делением и влиянием этих переменных на вероятность успешной интеграции в общество принимающей страны.

Ключевые слова: сектор занятости, половое деление, интеграция, уровень жизни, адаптация, низкоквалифицированные мигранты, уровень образования, «видимый» и «теневые» типы трудоустройства

 

The present paper aims at examining the way how available employment opportunities for immigrants combined with division in gender affect the integration outcome in the society of receiving state.

Key words: employment sector, gender division, integration, standard of living, adaptation, low - qualified/skilled migrants, level of education, «visible» and «invisible» sectors of employment

 

The present paper aims at examining the way how available employment opportunities combined with division in gender produce more successful integration in the case of Portugal compared to Spain. This research focuses upon the time period from the beginning of 1990s until present. In the course of research semi - structured interviews were conducted: two with the Head of Ukrainian umbrella association in Portugal and Head of Ukrainian Saturday school in Lisbon along with two semistructured interviews with the academics involved in research on Eastern European immigration to Portugal; two telephone interviews were made with two Heads of Ukrainian associations in Spanish provinces accounting for significant concentration of Ukrainian immigrants (Madrid and Murcia) [1].

The key questions were the following:

1) How has unemployment and standard of living among Ukrainians evolved? 2) In which sectors of employment Ukrainians are particularly concentrated? 3) What is the situation with housing among Ukrainian immigrants? 4) How are Ukrainian immigrants perceived by the locals? 5) What are the key differences in integration among Ukrainian immigrants in comparison to Portuguese- and Spanishspeaking immigrant communities? 6) Which networks did Ukrainians use in order to get to Portugal and Spain at the initial stage of migratory flows and have they have changed over time? 7) Are there particularly favorable policies towards certain immigrant community in Portugal and Spain? 8) Why does competition among Ukrainian associations exist in Spain, whereas in Portugal this has not been the case? 9) Are there any common goals between Ukrainian and other immigrant associations that they pursue together? 10) Which are the areas where immigrant associations can effectively promote immigrant interest?

Most of the secondary literature, reports and statistics regarding integration of Ukrainian community in Portugal were obtained from Luso - American Foundation and documentation center of the High Commissariat of Integration and Intercultural Dialogue in Lisbon during the field work in Lisbon.

There are a number of explanations for the gender divisions of the same immigrant community in the two cases. In «Laws of Migration» Ravenstein argues that males demonstrate higher levels of mobility than females in migration flows [2]. Unlike males, women in search of employment opportunities abroad tend to generally make short - distance journeys. However, his theory is completely inapplicable for Ukrainian immigrant flows to Iberian Peninsula. In the case of Portugal, males are the dominant gender and in the case of Spain - females, taking into account that Ukrainians travel to another edge of Europe making the same long - distance journeys.

Explanations of gendered occupational concentration due to women's traditional subordination in households are also too weak to shed light on clear - cut division in employment among Ukrainian women and men in Portugal and Spain. It seems more appropriate, however, to look for the answer in scholarship arguing that transformations taking place inside the labor market prove to be the strongest determinants of occupation type. This is to say, division in employment opportunities between Ukrainian men and women is not considered to be «the result of inequalities  in the attainment of human capital that are structured outside of the labor market» [3]. As interviews with Heads of immigrant associations and academics have shown, Ukrainian immigrants in Spain and Portugal do not have the opportunity to choose their occupation even in low - skilled sectors: women go to clean flats, babysit or pick fruits and vegetables, while males work in construction, industry and more difficult types of agricultural work [4].

As Natalia Ribas - Mateos states, «these demands [for female workers] are dependant on changes in employment for local women, changing conceptions of the family and the existence of weak welfare state regimes. In case of Spain, women usually find jobs rejected by local/Spanish women, as in the case of extended system of live - in domestic service in southern European countries» [5].

Domestic work, service industry and agriculture are traditionally regarded as female types of occupation. According to the 2007 statistics of Spanish Ministry of Labor and Immigration, 89% of females turned out to be involved in segments of the labor market such as services and agriculture. A peculiar feature of such occupations is complete dependence of the worker's legal status on the employer; this is especially true for live - in domestic workers. Legal status of agricultural workers is also uncertain due to the seasonal character of their occupation and temporary work permits. Secondly, the lack of language skills limits the access of Ukrainian women to other types of domestic work as well as the more visible service industry including restaurants and hotels, where Brazilian women in case in Portugal are concentrated and Latin American females in the case of Spain [6].

According to the Ukrainian Institute of Diaspora Studies research, 65% of immigrant women in Spain are females and 70% of immigrants in Portugal are males [7]. The determining factors for these gender divisions were addressed in Chapter 3 in «Immigration networks». In 2007 according to the Spanish Ministry of Labor and Immigration, among 38,118 Ukrainians registered with paying social security, the gender breakdown was approximately on the same level with slight predominance of females showing 3.4% increase since 2005 and 122.9% since 2004 (19,118 in comparison to 19,000 males) [8]. Such a noticeable change in relative share of female immigrants in the previous few years suggests that previously they were illegal and therefore were not registered among workers with social security payments. As reported by the Spanish government the percentage of immigrant women is only slightly higher than the percentage of immigrant men, while according to the Ukrainian Institute of Diaspora the share of Ukrainian women is much higher than the share of Ukrainian men in Spain (65%). Such an almost 15% difference in statistical results could be explained by the fact that Ukrainian women in Spain are mostly employed with informal type of work contracts compared to men. It is interesting that in the case of Portugal the gender division is even more lopsided, with 70% predominance of males throughout 2001-2005 and 30% of females [9]. The data of the Ukrainian Diaspora Institute confirms these statistics, which can be explained by the fact that only approximately 5 thousand of 40 thousand of Ukrainians residing in Portugal are illegal [10]. For the reasons outlined above, domestic work and agriculture will be classified as «non - autonomous» and «invisible» occupational sectors as compared to «autonomous» and «visible» sectors including construction, and manufacturing where workers are less dependent on their employers for housing and work contracts and have greater access to state institutions.

Analysis of the first indicator, occupational concentration of Ukrainian immigrants in both countries, allows verifying assumption concerning predominance of «visible» occupations among Ukrainians in Portugal versus «invisible» among Ukrainians in Spain. In the first case, available statistical data are somewhat old dating back to December 2002. Segmental breakdown of Ukrainian immigrants in Portugal illustrates that around 47% are occupied in construction, nearly 25% - in industrial sector, around 15% - in agriculture and fisheries, less then 10% - in hotel and restaurants industry and even less - in other kinds of services (domestic) [11].

Therefore, we can make several important conclusions from available data: almost 75% of labor migrants are involved in «visible» sectors of labor market versus only 25% of those employed in occupations in which the probability of illegal employment is high. Furthermore, statistics concerning Ukrainian work contracts in 2003 illustrated in the table below confirms their concentration in «visible occupations», construction sectors (41.3%) and manufacturing industry (24.2%). However, service industry still accounts for 13.1% along with restaurants and hotel (6%) where predominantly women are employed.

In the case of Ukrainian immigrants in Spain, more detailed statistics is available allowing us to trace changes in the community's occupational profile since 2004. Analysis of their employment patterns will be made from the first year of reliable data, 2004, until the latest data of 2007. The table below indicates the segmental concentration of Ukrainian immigrants throughout 2005-2007. We can see that roughly 54% of Ukrainian immigrants are employed in services and agriculture and this share remains relatively stable throughout the period of analysis. Generally speaking, we can also observe the trend that in all four sectors where Ukrainians are represented no noticeable transformations occur with regard to their relative proportions across the occupational sectors. Therefore, assumption concerning predominance of Ukrainians in Spain in «invisible sectors» is also confirmed by statistics.

Further evidence of the higher demand in Spain for agricultural and service workers can be inferred from data about Spanish quota system for immigrants. In accordance with Spanish Organic Law which underwent two transformations in the year.

2000 and two in 2003, labor migrants are accepted through quotas for occupation sectors experiencing underemployment. On the basis of available statistics from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Spain, the highest demand for labor could be observed in agriculture with an annual quota of 18,389 workers (among them only 962 permanent permits), followed distantly by hotel services (a 3,280 quota with roughly 2000 permanent permits, the construction sector (2,722 total and 2,227 permanent permits) and metal industries (1,641 total with 1,616 permanent permits) [14]. These figures indicate the most vulnerable situation is in agriculture, which is not surprising due to the seasonal character of such employment calling for temporary work permits. After its validity expires, most of these immigrants without renewed work contracts are likely to fall into an irregular status. In contrast, construction and industries workers have predominantly permanent permits which makes their situation more stable in terms of legality and less dependent on the will of employer.

Having measured employment situation of immigrants in both countries on the basis of occupational concentration, we can argue that three indicators have confirmed hypothesis concerning more successful integration of Ukrainian immigrants in labour market in Portuguese case in comparison to Spain.

In this respect, it should be emphasized that predominant occupation type combined with gender effectively demonstrates more successful integration in case of Portugal in comparison to Spain. It is worth mentioning that both in Portugal and Spain the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian immigrants are involved into low - qualified segments of labour market. In this respect, two types of employment were distinguished, «autonomous» and «visible» versus «non - autonomous» and «invisible». In the first case, construction and industrial sector were classified as «autonomous» due to structure of employer - worker relations which do not entail a complete dependence on one's employer for one's legal status, housing and permanent stay. Furthermore, these segments of the labour market are subject to constant state inspections and control and therefore they are classified as «visible». Such occupation types are predominant for immigrants in Portugal, a fact confirmed by statistical data. At the same time, agriculture and service industry, in particular, domestic service, are classified as «invisible» due to almost complete dependence of workers on their employers for their work permit (very often being employed without legal job contract), and housing, as a lot of maids and baby - sitters are live - in workers. In addition, immigrants involved in agriculture are mostly entitled only to temporary work permits and very often after their expiration fall under irregular status.

The Ukrainian community in Spain is overrepresented in such «invisible» and «non - autonomous» occupations. The different gender profiles of the Ukrainian immigrants in Portugal versus Spain are also worth mentioning, because roughly 70% of males are settled in Portugal and roughly 65% of women in Spain. Another fact testifying to consequences of predominant occupation type is that nearly 66% of Ukrainians in Spain are illegal. Therefore, the direct correlation between employment of women in «invisible» and «non - autonomous» occupations in Spain versus predominance of males and «visible» occupations in Portugal indicated more successful integration level in the second case.

By providing insight into the variable levels of integration between Ukrainians in Portugal versus Ukrainians in Spain, this paper seeks to contribute to the scholarship on immigrant integration. I show that the host society's need for highly - skilled labour, for example, may be used as a tool for elaborating policy strategies for immigrant inclusion by states experiencing a lack of high - skilled professions on one side and marginal situation of immigrants from the other.



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