The current economic crisis is worsening migrants' living conditions and thus their social and economic integration into EU countries. However, recent literature has not sufficiently considered the strategies that unemployed migrants adopt to cope with this transformation. This article explores the economic and social impact of the recession on migrant workers. In particular, it analyses the coping strategies of unemployed Moroccan and Romanian migrants in Italy, who are the biggest national groups of foreigners. Drawing on 170 in-depth interviews carried out in one of the most dynamic areas of northeast Italy, we find that Moroccan and Romanian migrants adopt different strategies in order to cope with unemployment: the first suffer more from discrimination than the latter in the labour market but can enjoy the economic and social support of extended family and religious community, while for Romanians, it is easier to find a new job, because they can rely on a more diversified social network. Furthermore, migrants of both national groups rarely return to their country of origin, but Moroccans (non-EU nationals) seem to be geographically more mobile than Romanians (EU nationals), who show a resolve to remain in Italy. Finally, unemployed migrants are minimizing their living costs in a very similar way. This paper also studies other differences among interviewees that arise from their gender, age and family model.
This article examines different forms of Ukrainian migrant women’s social remittances, articulating some results of two ethnographic studies: one focused on the migration of Ukrainian women to Italy, and the other on the social impact of emigration in Ukraine. First, the paper illustrates the patterns of monetary remittance management, which will be defined as a specific form of social remittance, since they are practices shaped by systems of norms challenged by migration. In the second part, the article moves on to discuss other types of social remittances transferred by migrant women to their families left behind: the right of self-care and self-realisation; the recognition of alternative and more women-friendly life-course patterns; consumption styles and ideas on economic education. Therefore, I will explore the contents of social remittances, but also the gender and intergenerational conflicts that characterise these flows of cultural resources.
Research on the relationship between reproductive work and women´s life trajectories including the experience of labour migration has mainly focused on the case of relatively young mothers who leave behind, or later re-join, their children. While it is true that most women migrate at a younger age, there are a significant number of cases of men and women who move abroad for labour purposes at a more advanced stage, undertaking a late-career migration. This is still an under-estimated and under-researched sub-field that uncovers a varied range of issues, including the global organization of reproductive work and the employment of migrant women as domestic workers late in their lives. By pooling the findings of two qualitative studies, this article focuses on Peruvian and Ukrainian women who seek employment in Spain and Italy when they are well into their forties, or older. A commonality the two groups of women share is that, independently of their level of education and professional experience, more often than not they end up as domestic and care workers. The article initially discusses the reasons for late-career female migration, taking into consideration the structural and personal determinants that have affected Peruvian and Ukrainian women’s careers in their countries of origin and settlement. After this, the focus is set on the characteristics of domestic employment at later life, on the impact on their current lives, including the transnational family organization, and on future labour and retirement prospects. Apart from an evaluation of objective working and living conditions, we discuss women’s personal impressions of being domestic workers in the context of their occupational experiences and family commitments. In this regard, women report varying levels of personal and professional satisfaction, as well as different patterns of continuity-discontinuity in their work and family lives, and of optimism towards the future. Divergences could be, to some extent, explained by the effect of migrants´ transnational social practices and policies of states.
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