Alisa Petroff

The Upward Occupational Mobility of Immigrant Women in Spain

This paper studies the upward occupational mobility trajectories of immigrant women performing unskilled work as a first job in Spain. The goals of the research are to go beyond the debate that focuses on the structural elements that condition their labour trajectories in Spain and to include both personal factors and the way in which these women use their agency in order to shape their labour trajectories. We have opted for a mixed-method approach, using data from the National Immigrant Survey ENI-2007, combined with 42 socio-biographical interviews with immigrant women from Latin America living in the metropolitan areas of Barcelona and Madrid.

Turning points and transitions in the migratory trajectories of skilled Romanian immigrants in Spain

ABSTRACT The academic interest on skilled migration patterns has increased at the same time as the flows of skilled migrants around the world. Despite this tendency, there is still a lack of knowledge regarding the migratory projects of particular ethnic communities or in specific receiving contexts. The current paper examines the migratory experiences of Romanian professionals and the extent to which the incorporation into the Spanish labor market represents a turning point or a transition in their overall life trajectory. Based on a qualitative design, the paper highlights how some profiles are more sensitive to sending and receiving contexts (structural elements), display strategies through mobilization of universities or social networks and shape disrupted trajectories. Others, respond to globalized dynamics, mobilize corporations and finally develop smooth labor transitions. The main elements explaining these patterns are tackled and explained in three profiles of professionals: those who arrive to Spain thanks to the transfer by a multinational company; those who complement their tertiary education with Master degree in Spain and finally, those who correspond to the economic migrant profile.

From the Brain Drain to the Brain Circulation: Typology of a Romanian Brain Network

The classical approaches on skilled migration focus on the negative effects of the phenomenon through concepts such as brain drain. Geopolitical, economic, social and technological changes occurred in the last decades allow the development of new theoretical tools that enable a better understanding of the skilled migration processes. From this perspective, the chapter aims to review the main concepts provided by the literature on skilled migration and to highlight the potential of the brain networking perspective as a theoretical and political tool. The second objective of the chapter is to present the main findings of the survey conducted in 2010 to a sample of 217 skilled Romanian immigrants that are part of the international brain network GRASP (Global Romanian Society of Young Professionals).

Social welfare grey zones: how and why subnational actors provide when nations do not?

ABSTRACT In an era where even citizenship is not a guarantee of access to the welfare state, can non-citizens gain access to social protection? Using health care as a lens, and the United States and Spain as cases, we find that non-citizens do have access to social protection via what we call ‘grey zones’, namely points of disagreement between national and local governments that create opportunities for non-citizens. Grey zones are possible due to processes that are often seen as disenfranchising: the denationalisation of policy and the disaggregation of citizenship. In addition, they tend to open up regardless of the nature or intent of national reforms. That said, we find significant variation in the extent to which subnational governments take advantage of them. While differences are somewhat explained by partisanship, significant outliers warrant further investigation.

Training, labour and migratory trajectories of skilled Romanians in Spain: key elements explaining successful careers

Abstract Based on a qualitative approach (30 biographical interviews and 30 life satisfaction charts), this paper aims to frame the intra-EU skilled migration patterns into the life course perspective. In addressing this broad aim, the paper focuses on reconstructing the training, labour and migratory trajectories of skilled Romanians with tertiary education acquired in Romania, with previous labour trajectories in Romania, working in Barcelona’s IT, financial and business sectors. By shaping these life trajectories from a retrospective perspective, the paper offers key elements in explaining successful training, labour and migratory careers taking into account the following principles: agency; time and space; life-span development, and the principle of linked lives.