Carlota Solé

The labour market and racial discrimination in Spain

This article analyses the issues raised by immigration into Spain from the specific perspective of entry into the labour market. The first part looks at the mechanisms of discrimination against immigrant workers, and then proceeds to analyse the factors that perpetuate racial discrimination in the labour market, based on the interests and practices of the various social agents (government, employers, trades unions, local workers) in relation to immigrants. We show how the non-EU immigrant labour force suffers from negative discrimination compared to native workers, in terms of both access to jobs and to working conditions, independently of their educational levels, qualifications or prior work experience. This not only gives rise to a loss of human resources available to the host society, but also represents a definite barrier for the integration into the host society of these immigrant groups. As long as immigrants are unable to overcome this vulnerability in the labour market, their socio-economic integration will be impossible.

EL IMPACTO DE LA INMIGRACIÓN EN LA SOCIEDAD RECEPTORA

El articulo presenta un modelo para analizar el impacto de la inmigracion teniendo en cuenta los condicionantes materiales y los factores institucionales que inciden, mediatizados por los medios de comunicacion de masas, en tres dimensiones: la seguridad ciudadana, la identidad cultural y la competencia por los recursos, de la sociedad receptora. Si bien este modelo se diseno para llevar a cabo el analisis comparativo del impacto de la inmigracion en cuatro paises del sur de Europa (Espana, Grecia, Italia, Portugal), el presente articulo recoge los resultados obtenidos para el caso espanol.

Immigration policies in Southern Europe

This brief concluding article deals with immigration control and integration policies in the four countries of Southern Europe. In general, control prevails over integration. The paper is in three parts. First, some common features and an overview of the situation of immigrants in Southern Europe are described. The third and final section of the paper analyses some of the difficulties of applying policies for integration and the creation of multicultural citizenship in these countries.

Irregular employment amongst migrants in Spanish cities.

This article presents the irregular employment situation of non-European union immigrants in Spanish cities. Foreign labor is remarkable for its heterogeneity in terms of country of origin, demographic characteristics, and the different ways in which immigrants have entered the job market. Legal immigrants tend to concentrate in five different branches of activity, such as domestic service (mostly women), hotel and restaurant industry, agriculture, building and retail trade. Migrants who work in agriculture suffer the worst labor conditions than all other migrants. However, all migrants experience difficulty in obtaining residency and labor permits. Four integration strategies among Moroccan immigrants in Catalonia are discussed and can be viewed as support networks of the immigrants.

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.

El autoempleo de las trabajadoras inmigradas. ¿Una alternativa a la discriminación laboral?

This paper analizes, from a gender perspective, the motivations on the burgeoning development of noncomunitarian migrant women business in Spain. These women decide to become entrepreneurship after long labour trajectories mainly at the domestic service and other labour activities connected with social reproduction and care. We link these activities both to the role of the social networks of immigrants themselves and to the conditioning factors of the economic structures of the host society. The main objective is to study, through qualitative interview technique, if the entrepreneurial decision is a reaction to their marginal position on the labour market, in terms of wages, labour conditions and social status; as well as a reaction to their frustration once they realize labour mobility is difficult.

Inmigración comunitaria : ¿discriminación inversa?

La inmigración desde países de la Europa comunitaria en España ha sido muy significativa a lo largo de las últimas décadas. Los flujos de migración laboral y de jubilados que se asientan en nuestro país, procedentes de la Unión Europea de los 15 miembros y de los nuevos países miembro, tras la ampliación de la UE, provoca la demanda de fuerza de trabajo cualificada en el sector servicios: sanitarios, orientados a la tercera edad, especialmente; y en el industrial: altamente especializada, o bien experta en oficios como fresadores, soldadores y otros, escasos entre la mano de obra autóctona dado el poco prestigio que ha acompañado los estudios de formación profesional en nuestro país y el bajo nivel de estatus que se atribuía, hasta el momento actual, a este tipo de profesiones. La llegada de trabajadores comunitarios (alemanes, ingleses, etc.) de alta cualificación profesional, y de trabajadores procedentes de Europa del Este (a menudo sobrecualificados para desarrollar tareas manuales) puede generar nuevos procesos de etnoestratificación en el mercado de trabajo. Las relaciones de competencia, complementariedad y/o substitución en el mercado de trabajo se reducen al ámbito de la empresa o el lugar de trabajo. Por el momento, no derivan abiertamente en conflictos sociales de cariz racista o xenófobo, como puede ocurrir con los inmigrantes extracomunitarios procedentes de países externos a la Unión Europea.

El modelo de gestión de las migraciones en Cataluña: ¿una "vía catalana" de integración?

Migratory movements from the rest of Spain were the foundation for Catalonia’s population growth until 70s. In the last years, we assist to the beginning of a new wave of immigration from non communitarian countries, which, far from becoming stable, has increased, diversified and extended throughout the territory . Certainly, the Government of the Generalitat has a long history of developing policies on immigration, with the first Interdepartmental Immigration Plan (1993-2000) in 1993. Nevertheless, the third and last Plan, The Citizenship and Immigration Plan (2005-2008), although it maintains coherence with some of the containts and guidelines of previous plans, it introduces important innovations, as well as a new concept of citizenship based on residence, the incorporation of identity as a criteria to define policies or

Eficiencia y discriminación lingüística en la empresa

En este articulo se analizan las estrategias de coordinacion linguistica de cinco escenarios empresariales situados en Cataluna (Espana) afectados desigualmente por la movilidad de los factores de produccion. Analizamos los regimenes linguisticos de cada uno de estos escenarios, prestando especial atencion a los criterios linguisticos de seleccion y promocion de personal. A partir de los datos obtenidos establecemos dos tipologias de empresas en las que se enfatizan de forma diferenciada la eficacia comunicativa y el control de los recursos por medio de la discriminacion linguistica.

El concepto de igualdad ante el mercado

Despues de examinar el concepto de igualdad desde el punto de vista sociologico, en la realidad social del capitalismo avanzado y en el superado socialismo real, se analiza criticamente el papel del estado como mecanismo igualitario o redistribuidor (de rentas, de privilegios, de recursos, de habilidades, etc.).