David Bartram

Foreign workers in Israel: history and theory.

Beginning in 1993, Israel began importing large numbers of foreign workers, replacing its traditional Palestinian labor force. This article presents a descriptive history and theoretical analysis of the migration, placing it in the context of Israels reliance on noncitizen labor from the occupied territories. Dual labor market theory is particularly helpful in analyzing labor migration to Israel, but only by also analyzing the determinants of state policy can we understand how these recent flows began. The Israeli case thus suggests a cumulative model of the initiation of labor migration flows: structural factors create a predisposition toward use of foreign labor, and political factors determine whether and how that predisposition will be actualized.

Japan and Labor Migration: Theoretical and Methodological Implications of Negative Cases

Migration scholars have frequently emphasized the tremendous increase in international migration in recent years. But several advanced industrial countries — Japan in particular — have relatively s...

Labor Migration Policy and the Governance of the Construction Industry in Israel and Japan

Significant “guestworker” immigration occurs when the state lacks the capacity to inhibit rent-seeking by private interests that benefit from imported labor. Policies allowing imported labor result in government subsidies for employers’ profits. These subsidies are usefully conceived as rents. A developmentalist state(e.g. Japan) will constrain the creation of such rents, especially because imported labor carries long-term costs not borne by employers and inhibits productivity growth and positive structural change. A clientelist state (e.g. Israel) falls prey to this type of rent-seeking because of a weaker institutional capacity for creating conditions that make alternative solutions feasible and profitable for employers.

Key concepts in migration

Introduction Migration Acculturation Alien/Foreigner Assimilation Borders Brain Drain/Gain/Circulation Chain Migration Circular Migration Citizenship Cumulative Causation Denizens Deportation Diaspora Displacement and Internally Displaced Persons Ethnic Enclaves and Ethnic Economies Ethnicity and Ethnic Minorities Family Migration and Reunification Forced Migration Gendered Migration Guestworkers Human Trafficking and Smuggling Integration Internal/Domestic Migration Labour Migration Migrant Networks Migration Stocks and Flows Multiculturalism Refugees and Asylum Seekers Regional Integration and Migration Remittances Restrictionism vs. Open Borders Return Migration Second Generation Selectivity Social Capital Social Cohesion Transnationalism Undocumented (Illegal) Migration

Migration, Ethnonationalist Destinations and Social Divisions: Non-Jewish Immigrants in Israel

Immigrants in ethnonationalist destinations who lack shared ethnicity with natives typically encounter difficulties of integration. But analysis of non-Jewish immigrants in Israel shows that lacking shared ethnicity is not an insurmountable obstacle, even in strongly ethnonationalist destinations. Non-Jewish immigrants—including migrant workers—have achieved a degree of membership in Israeli society. Moreover, their presence has exacerbated certain divisions among Jewish Israelis. Even in ethnonationalist destinations, then, the immigration of non-co-ethnics does not result only/inevitably in divisions between immigrants and natives: it can also divide natives, while some immigrants and natives find a measure of common ground.

The normative foundations of ‘policy implications’: reflections on international labour migration

Sociologists, when offering suggestions for policy arising from their empirical research, typically do not provide explicit reflection on the values or interests such ‘policy implications’ are meant to advance. This article illustrates why such reflection can be important, by showing how different normative frameworks lead to different policy suggestions concerning international labour migration. In a conventional neoclassical economics view, labour migration brings obvious gains to the migrants themselves; ‘revealed preferences’ is sufficient to know that such gains exist. In a ‘happiness studies’ perspective, however, those benefits are not nearly as obvious, and a discussion of implications for labour migration policy might come to quite different conclusions. In general, the quality of one’s suggestions for policy implications is likely to be enhanced via greater awareness and explicit discussion of the normative positions embedded in such views.

Conspicuous By Their Absence: Why Are There So Few Foreign Workers in Finland?

Migration scholars commonly assume that employment of low-wage foreign workers is a universal feature of labour markets in wealthy countries. However, several wealthy countries have very few foreign workers proportional to their labour force. Existing theories of international labour migration are not well equipped to explain these anomalies. This paper summarises the challenge presented by ‘negative cases’ of labour migration and explores an explanation for the minimal presence of foreign workers in Finland, where they amount to less than 1 per cent of the labour force. Most Western governments prefer not to allow employers to import low-level workers, but many do not succeed in transforming this preference into actual policy. Finland is able to do so because of an activist economic policy that results in a reduced prevalence of low-level jobs. This policy is supported by a mode of governance that constrains opportunities for employers to play a dominant role in policy-making. Another supporting condition is the presence of a highly organised labour movement.

Forced Migration and “Rejected Alternatives”: A Conceptual Refinement

The “forced migration” concept can obscure how some people who migrate in this mode exercise a key form of agency. Some refugee flows occur when people reasonably reject options that might obviate the need to flee (e.g., abandoning their religious beliefs). A similar form of agency must be recognized regarding forced migration of other types: people facing severe economic difficulties sometimes become migrants by rejecting options that might secure their subsistence, and when that choice is reasonable because the alternatives amount to human rights violations, we should then describe their migration as “forced” even if it is not wholly involuntary.

Cultural dimensions of workfare and welfare

Abstract I compare the treatment of two marginal recipient groups, not commonly regarded as “on welfare,” to that experienced by conventional welfare recipients and argue that we need an understanding of welfare that takes culture more seriously. Public discourse concerning welfare would be more enlightening if we could move beyond hegemonic concepts such as “economic self-sufficiency.” I propose thinking of welfare as a public subsidy for groups whose way of life is incompatible with economic self-sufficiency – an approach that enables us to consider culture explicitly in debates regarding the core populations affected by social policy.

Happiness among North-to-South Migrants in Europe

Migration from a poorer country to a wealthier one often results in a lower relative economic status for the migrant (even when it increases their incomes in an “absolute” sense) – and thus perhaps results also in a decrease in his/her happiness. By the same logic, migration from a wealthy country to a poorer one might bring a higher status position for the migrant and so might raise his/her happiness. This paper investigates happiness among migrants who move from northern European countries to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, comparing them to stayers in the origin countries (Belgium, Switzerland, France, Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands). The analysis shows that migrants are less happy than stayers, in a bivariate comparison and a conventional regression model. A consideration of results from “treatment models” and matching analyses suggests that the difference represents a decrease in happiness for the migrants (and not a difference in happiness prior to migration), contrary to an expectation rooted in an anticipated increase in economic status.