Changing status, changing lives? The socio-economic impact of EU Enlargement on low wage migrant labour in the UK


Papers:


This major research project: Changing Status, Changing Lives? has been funded by the ESRC and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The lead researchers are Bridget Anderson, Martin Ruhs and Sarah Spencer (all at COMPAS, University of Oxford) and Ben Rogaly (Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex).

The research for Changing status, changing lives? was motivated by the accession of ten new countries to the European Union (EU) on 1st May 2004. The ten accession states include the “A8” countries – Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – plus Cyprus and Malta. Among the member states of the pre-enlarged EU (EU15) only Sweden, Ireland and the UK granted A8 nationals free access to the labour market immediately upon EU enlargement.

EU Enlargement enabled A8 workers to migrate and take up employment in the UK without restrictions (as long as they registered in the “Worker Registration Scheme”). It also meant that overnight A8 nationals who were already working in the UK before 1st May 2004 experienced a “change of status”, acquiring most of the rights of an EU national. This includes the right to live and work in the UK without restrictions, to remain permanently in the UK, and to be joined by dependants. For A8 nationals residing in the UK illegally, 1st May 2004 was, in effect, an amnesty. For those in the UK legally but with restrictions on the work that they were permitted to do, acquiring EU rights has given them the freedom to change their employer and sector of employment. Click here for a project briefing (.pdf).

Changing status, changing lives? aims to study the consequences of granting most of the economic and social rights of an EU national to A8 nationals who were already working in the UK before 1st May 2004 – with “legal” or “illegal” status. Project outputs include a series of papers all of which are made available on this webpage.

Click on the titles to link to further information:

Papers

Media Work

Research Instruments


Comments on any paper or aspects of this research project are very welcome. Please write to: changingstatus@compas.ox.ac.uk

Papers:

‘A very private business'
Bridget Anderson

This paper published in the European Journal of Women's Studies [2007, 14 (3)] considers the whether there is a specific demand for migrant domestic workers in the UK , or for workers with particular characteristics that in theory could be met by citizens. It discusses how immigration status can make it easier, not only to recruit domestic workers, but also to retain them. “Foreignness” may also make the management of the employment relation easier with employers anxious to discover a coincidence of interest with the worker. Employers are not only looking for generic “foreignness” however, but typically also seek particular nationalities or ethnicities of worker which can raise difficulties for agencies who are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of “race”.

>> Click here to go to the journal website <<

Battles in Time: the Relation between Global and Labour Mobilities
Bridget Anderson

How is it that migrants, among the most highly controlled groups of the population, provide such de-regulated labour? This paper argues that rather than a tap regulating entry, immigration controls are a mould constructing certain types of workers through the requirements and conditions of immigration status. In particular state enforced immigration controls, themselves a response to global mobility, give employers greater control over labour mobility. Migrants both manipulate and are constrained by immigration status. An analysis of migration and labour markets must consider matters of time: length of period in a job; the impact of working time on retention, length of stay, changing immigration status etc. Attention to these temporal dimensions is particularly important in theorizing the relation between immigration status and precarious work.

>> Download Full Paper (.pdf)<<


The micro-foundations of labor shortages: De-constructing employer demand for migrant workers in the UK’s hospitality sector
Gareth Matthews and Martin Ruhs

This paper explores the nature of the persistent “labor and skills shortages” reported in the UK’s hospitality sector, with a focus on the role of migrant workers in meeting and shaping employer demand for labor. We argue that, to better understand and evaluate claims of occupational/sectoral staff shortages, it is necessary to study their microfoundations, including the day-to-day manifestations of employers’ demand for labor in a particular place and time. This requires a theoretical approach that encompasses a multidisciplinary set of theories, concepts and methodologies that help “de-construct” the various economic and social dimensions of employers’ demand for labor. Drawing on data from in-depth and survey interviews, our empirical analysis explores the key competencies, personal attributes and employment relations that hospitality employers demand from their employees, and the implications for whom employers recruit from a highly diverse pool of available workers differentiated by gender, race, ethnicity and nationality. We find that employers’ recruitment decisions are driven by three major objectives: (i) minimizing labor costs in a segmented labor market; (ii) reducing the indeterminacy of labour through recruiting “good attitude” rather than technical skills; and (iii) managing the mobility of workers to find the optimal balance between the labour retention and flexibility needs of the business. The pursuit of these goals has encouraged most employers interviewed in this study to develop a preference for migrant workers over British workers, and, more generally, to distinguish and recruit workers largely based on their nationality. Although interlaced with gender, race and ethnicity, employers’ highly stereotyped perceptions of “national characteristics” are used as the key proxy for assessing candidates’ suitability for specific occupations. These findings open up an important debate about the meaning, evaluation and desirable policy response to the persistent staff shortages reported in the sector.

>> Download Full Paper (.pdf)<<

The origins and functions of illegality in migrant labour markets: An analysis of migrants, employers and the state in the UK
Martin Ruhs and Bridget Anderson

This paper explores the nature and determinants of illegality in migrant labour markets. It conceptualises the various “spaces of (il)legality” in the employment of migrants, and explores the perceptions and functions of these spaces from the points of view of migrants, employers and the state. Our theoretical approach goes beyond the notion that illegality is“produced” by the state, and recognises the agency that some migrants and employers have vis-à-vis the state’s migration frameworks. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative interviews with East European migrants and employers in the UK, and analysis of the UK government’s policies, rhetoric and enforcement, we find that migrants, employers and the state all recognise the distinctions between different types of illegality, and their differentiated impacts. In particular, semi-compliance – which we define as the employment of migrants who are legally resident but working in violation of the employment restrictions attached to their immigration status – is a distinct and contested space of (il)legality that serves important functions. It allows employers and migrants to maximize economic benefits from employment while minimizing the threat of state sanctions for violations of immigration law. Semi-compliance exists, and is likely to persist, because it constitutes an equilibrium which, we show, serves the interests of migrants and employers and in practice is difficult for the state to control. We expect these findings for the UK to be of relevance to many other high income countries that, like the UK, consider migrants both as an important source of flexible labour and yet as subjects of immigration control whose employment needs to be closely controlled.

>> Download Full Paper (.pdf)<<

Fair enough? Central and East European migrants in low-wage employment in the UK

This paper explores the employment experiences of migrants from East and Central Europe working in low-wage occupations in selected sectors of the UK economy (agriculture, construction, hospitality and the au-pair sector); and the nature and determinants of employer demand for migrant labour in these sectors. It is particularly interested in investigating the role of immigration status – including “illegal residence” – as a potential determinant of both employer demand and the conditions of migrants' employment. In total, more than 600 migrants and over 500 employers of migrants were surveyed and interviewed before and after EU enlargement on 1st May 2004. The paper hopes to make a significant contribution to academic and policy debates on immigration in general, and in particular to debates about immigration status and employment.

>> Download Full Paper (.pdf) <<

>> Download 'Findings' Document (.pdf) <<


Changing status, changing lives? Methods, participants and lessons learnt

This paper describes the research methods of and participants in the Changing Status, Changing Lives? project. It first explains the choice of research methods and gives an overview of the research design and sampling strategy. This is followed by more detailed explanations of the design of research instruments, access and implementation of interviews with workers and au pairs, and with employers, host families and agencies. The basic characteristics of the migrants, employers, host families and agencies surveyed and interviewed are then presented. The paper concludes with a preliminary assessment of the methodological lessons learned during the course of the project.

>> Download Full Paper (.pdf) <<


Greasing the wheels of the flexible labour market: East European labour immigration in the UK

In May 2004, the UK Government granted workers from the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (“A8 countries”) free access to the British labour market. This paper discusses the rationale and migration policy context of this decision and reviews the scale and economic impacts of the subsequent inflow of East European migrants. Free access for A8 workers was part of the Government's Managed Migration policy, designed to expand migration to fill vacancies in skilled and especially in low-waged occupations where employers found it difficult to legally employ migrants before EU enlargement. The much larger-than-expected increase in the employment of A8 workers since May 2004 has contributed to economic growth and benefited individual employers in the UK . It has, however, also raised new and still relatively under-researched questions about the distributional impacts and potential social costs of large-scale immigration. I argue that without a stronger commitment to the enforcement of labour laws and regulations, the immigration and employment of Central and East European workers in the UK is in danger of becoming an example of the kind of ‘unmanaged' migration that the Government is so keen to avoid.

>> Download Full Paper (.pdf) <<

Media Work:

Who to contact:

Bridget Anderson (bridget.anderson@compas.ox.ac.uk or 01865 274719)
Martin Ruhs (martin.ruhs@compas.ox.ac.uk or 07747 467530 / 01865 274567)
Sarah Spencer (sarah.spencer@compas.ox.ac.uk or 07932 083379)
Ben Rogaly (b.rogaly@sussex.ac.uk or 01273 873710)

Click here to download the press release - May 2006(.pdf)

Click here for the Oxford University press release - May 2007

Research Instruments

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS FOR WORKERS

Quantitative

Qualitative

Wave 1 (before EU Enlargement)

Survey of workers

Interview schedule for workers

Survey of au pairs

Interview schedule for au pairs

Wave 2 (after EU Enlargement)

Re-survey of workers

Re-interview schedule for workers

Retrospective survey of workers

Retrospective schedule for workers

Re-survey of au pairs still au pairs

Re-interview schedule for au pairs

Re-survey of au pairs now workers

Retrospective schedule for au pairs

Retrospective survey of au pairs still au pairs

 

Retrospective survey of au pairs now workers

Diaries for au pairs and workers

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS FOF EMPLOYERS, HOST FAMILIES AND AGENCIES

Quantitative

Qualitative

Wave 1 (before EU Enlargement)

 

Interview schedule for employers

 

Interview schedule for host families

 

Interview schedule for agencies

 

Interview schedule for au pair agencies

Wave 2 (after EU Enlargement)

Mail survey of employers

Re-interview schedule for employers

Mail survey of host families

Re-interview schedule for host families - those who continue to host au pairs
- those no longer hosting au pairs

 

Re-interview schedule for agencies

 

Re-interview schedule for au pair agencies

 

 

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