Torben Krings

Polish Migration to Ireland: ‘Free Movers’ in the New European Mobility Space

Since EU enlargement in 2004, Ireland has emerged as a major destination for Polish migrants. What are the particular features of this East–West migration? Based on repeat interviews with Polish migrants as part of a Qualitative Panel Study, we show that this migration is characterised by new mobility patterns. As ‘free movers’, Polish migrants are more mobile across national borders and within national labour markets. This affords them new opportunities beyond the employment experience. The younger and more educated of these migrants, especially, are part of a new generation of mobile Europeans for whom the move abroad is not only work-related but also involves lifestyle choices as part of a broader aspiration for self-development. The new mobility strategies of migrants become visible even in an economic downturn wherein Ireland has been hit by an unprecedented recession.

Migration and Recession: Polish Migrants in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland

In this paper we explore the impact of the current economic downturn on Polish migrants in the Irish labour market. Ireland appears to be well suited to study the impact of the recession on intra-European migration. The country has not only experienced large-scale inward migration from the new EU Member states (NMS) in recent years, but has also been severely hit by a recession. At times of an economic crisis, questions have begun to be asked about the future intentions of migrants. By drawing on an ongoing Qualitative Panel Study on the experience of Polish migrants in the Irish labour market, we argue that simplistic assumptions about migrants leaving the country ‘when times are getting tough’ are misplaced. No doubt some NMS migrants will leave because of the worsening economic situation and new opportunities elsewhere. As East-West migration has adopted a more temporary and circular character facilitated by a free movement regime, NMS migrants have the opportunity to move on elsewhere at times of a downturn. At the same time, many Polish migrants are ‘here to stay’, for the moment at least. This is for at least three reasons. A clear majority of NMS migrants remains in employment, in spite of the downturn. Furthermore, even if migrants should lose their jobs, welfare state arrangements in the host country offer some protection against destitution. Moreover, the decision to migrate, and consequently to stay or move on, is not just reached on the basis of economic considerations alone. Particularly social networks are of importance in sustaining the migration process relatively independent from short-term economic change, including an economic downturn.

From boom to bust: Migrant labour and employers in the Irish construction sector

This article analyses labour migration through a case study of migrants and employers in the Irish construction sector. It seeks to locate the choices of both sides of the employment relationship in a broader socioeconomic context that takes into account the regulatory environment and the labour market situation. The authors show how both sides of the employment relationship took advantage of Ireland’s open labour market policy in 2004. As employers were keen to fill skill and labour shortages in a buoyant construction sector, migrants found employment with relative ease, often involving subcontracting arrangements and informal recruitment patterns. During the boom years the sector provided considerable opportunities for migrants at different skill levels. However, now that the sector has moved from ‘boom to bust’, the employment context has dramatically changed. In the light of large-scale job losses the bargaining position of employers has increased as migrants try to cope with deteriorating employment conditions.

Bewegungsfreiheit in einem Ungleichheitsraum: Gewerkschaften und transnationale Arbeitsmobilität in der erweiterten Europäischen Union

Durch die Einfuhrung der EU-Personenfreizugigkeit, „the most open cross-state movement policy worldwide“ , haben die EU-Mitgliedsstaaten die Kontrolle uber Zuwanderung zumindest teilweise aufgegeben. Dies ist ein ungewohnlicher Vorgang, denn bisher war die Regulierung von Grenzubertritten eines der zentralen Vorrechte von Nationalstaaten . Zwar kann der Arbeitsmarktzugang vorubergehend fur neue Beitrittslander eingeschrankt werden, wie zuletzt bei den EU-Osterweiterungen 2004 und 2007 geschehen. Dies andert aber nichts an der Tatsache, dass in der EU ein transnationaler Mobilitatsraum entstanden ist, dem das Prinzip der Bewegungsfreiheit zu Grunde liegt. Spatestens nach Ablauf einer Ubergangsfrist sind EU-MigrantInnen bei der Arbeitssuche mit einheimischen ArbeitnehmerInnen gleichgestellt. Aus dieser Perspektive betrachtet gehoren „nationale Arbeitsmarkte“ der Vergangenheit an.

EU Labor Markets after Post-Enlargement Migration

which arises from three key factors: the impact of globalisation on international migration, rendering it at once more fluid and flexible and enabling ‘migrants to live simultaneously in a multiplicity of locations’ (p. 3); the transformation of the nature of Irish migration itself between the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries and, thirdly, the impact of 9/11 which resulted in the securitisation of immigration with deleterious consequences for undocumented Irish immigrants in the US. The book largely focuses on New York rather than America per se and is informed by a series of interviews (we are not told precisely how many) with a series of stakeholders from within the Irish-American communities between 2004 and 2008. The End of Irish America? is at its strongest when discussing Irish America and the NorthernIreland conflict and demonstrating the activation and mobilisation of key Irish-American figures from the presidencies of Carter through Clinton. Paradoxically, the resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland has reduced the political clout of the Irish-American lobby, and as yet no comparable issue that might re-activate that lobby has emerged. Cochrane’s discussion of the securitisation of American immigration policy after 9/11 also provides useful insights into the dilemmas now faced by Irish undocumented immigrants in the United States. An opportunity is lost, however, to fully interrogate the implicit racialisation which forms the basis of calls for legalisation of the Irish. The chapters on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the Irish pub are less well integrated into the overall narrative. Both the parade and the pub exemplify the triumph of symbolic ethnicity over substantive ethnicity, a process identified by Herbert Gans in a seminal essay over thirty years ago but strangely not referenced in the current study. Other important works on Irish identity are also absent from the discussion. The concept of Irishness presented here is somewhat static, belying the textured, multi-layered and often contradictory meanings of ‘Irishness’ as a currency that is deployed*sometimes ambiguously*across cultural, social and economic domains. Cochrane argues that migration from Ireland in the twenty-first century is propelled by choice rather than necessity and that this changes the nature of the diaspora in fundamental ways. Irish immigrants who can move easily between Ireland and the US and who work in the mainstream as opposed to the ethnic economy are less likely to identify with the diaspora. He concludes that ‘hanging on to home’ is now a thing of the past. This notion of an expressed affiliation either to the US or to the ethnic community contradicts a central theme of the book, namely that globalisation allows for greater flexibility in the development, evocation and expression of identity. As the economy in Ireland declines, it is likely that renewed emigration will see many Irish people taking their chances in the United States. In the more straitened circumstances of global city economies, ethnic networking will likely be crucial to their ability to gain a foothold in the labour market. And, as in the past, Irish immigrants will manage their transnationalism in creative ways. The lifestyles of immigrants*whether Irish in New York or Polish or Nigerian in Dublin*reflect the influences of three social contexts: the country of origin, the country of reception and the ethnic community with whom they frequently identify. There is no doubt, as Cochrane argues, that the communications revolution of our time has altered the subjective experience of migration. Each new technological innovation further compresses time and space and enables migrant transnationalism. But transnationalism itself has a long history*predating accelerated and intensified communications networks*and will, I believe, continue to inform the lived experiences and practices of Irish immigrants into the future.

The Political Economy of the Service Transition; Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity

Since Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage was published by Hall and Soskice (2001), it has triggered a highly fruitful if at times controversial debate about institutions, complementarities and path dependency. Questions have been asked about its apparent functionalist leanings and whether different countries can be ordered alongside a dichotomy of liberal and coordinated market economies (CMEs). However, there is little doubt that the book marked a watershed in the discipline of comparative political economy. It put centre stage the issue of capitalist diversity and provided the heuristic tools for a growing body of research on different national models of capitalism and institutional change. Two more recent books are testimony to this. One of the criticisms that have been levelled against the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ (VoC) approach is that it is too much focused on industrial manufacturing and does not pay sufficient attention to the service economy. The Political Economy of the Service Transition seeks to rectify this gap. The editor Anne Wren has assembled an impressive range of authors mainly from the disciplines of political science and political economy, including some of the original contributors of the VoC book. The first part of the book is dedicated to the institutional underpinnings of the move towards a ‘post-industrial’ society, including chapters on employment creation, inequality, women’s employment, vocational training and higher education. The second part of the book is concerned with the political impact of the ‘service transition’, including chapters on deindustrialisation and the welfare state, the expansion of service employment and political preferences, working time and the political economy of gender. In the quite ambitious introductory chapter, Wren outlines the main arguments of the book which will be discussed here in more detail. She European Societies, 2015 Vol. 17, No. 5, 747–751, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/14616696. 2015.1087583

Book review: Patrick Emmenegger, Silja Häusermann, Bruno Palier and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser (eds), The Age of Dualization: The Changing Face of Inequality in Deindustrializing Societies

minimum of 40 per cent of each sex) to redress the default ‘male quota’; and in countries lacking political support they require a gender parity percentage target and a timeline for implementation. Quota policies need to be set in a wider context of equality plans and gender mainstreaming. Future research would require monitoring these recent initiatives and the consequences for their wider effects. Let’s see what happens.

Learning from Poland? What Recent Mass Immigration to Ireland Tells Us about Contemporary Irish Migration

Immigration in Europe is still understood in terms of the ‘Gastarbeiter’ immigration of the post-World War II boom: the permanent movement of unskilled workers from one country to another. A study of young educated Polish migrants in Dublin shows the limited contemporary relevance of this model: this was mobility rather than traditional migration, with journeys understood in terms of autonomy and self-development. Some contemporary Irish emigration is similar. The mass emigration of young people from Poland at the start of this century was prototypical for the individualistic forms of mobility of young Europeans today.

Book Review: Europe 2020: Towards a More Social EU?

In 2010 the EU launched the ‘Europe 2020’ strategy with the aim of creating ‘smart, sustainable and inclusive’ growth. The new strategy includes five headline targets, including raising the employment rate to 75 per cent and lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty and exclusion. This book provides an academic contribution to Europe 2020. Its main focus is on EU coordination and cooperation in the social field. In that regard it provides a critical assessment of the accomplishments and shortcomings of the previous ‘Lisbon Strategy’, and seeks to identify future possibilities for social policy coordination in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. The book is written for policy-makers, researchers and other stakeholders who are concerned with ‘building a more Social Europe’. In his chapter Maurizio Ferrera discusses the institutional clash between the logic of closure that is constitutive of national-based social policy and the logic of opening that underpins the process of European integration. To reconcile these different logics, he proposes a new ‘nesting’ of the national welfare state within the overall institutional architecture of the EU, leading to new forms of post-national sharing spaces. Roger Little, Patrick Diamond, Simon Latham and Tom Brodie assess the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. They identify a number of interlocking social crises, including rising unemployment, a growing gap between ‘winners and losers’, the demographic development, and migration and integration. These ‘aftershocks’, however, do not only originate in the financial crisis but also in broader structural change in Western societies. To respond to these challenges at the level of the EU they propose ‘a new policy paradigm based on a combination of social investment and regulatory intervention’. This should include a greater portability of social rights, a strengthening of the Posted Workers Directive, new tax initiatives, the development of a low carbon transition plan, a more efficient use of the EU Structural Funds and a greater focus on key social policy targets. Many of the following chapters deal with the main EU governance architecture for social policy, the Open Method for Coordination (OMC). While its shortcomings are mentioned, most authors offer a cautiously optimistic assessment of the method. In Bart Varnhercke’s view the Social OMC has become a ‘“template” for soft governance’ not only at the level of the EU but also at national level for the coordination of social policies. However, there is a need for more binding social policy targets. Moreover, it is essential to go beyond the issues of poverty and social exclusion and put a greater focus on the other strands of the Social OMC, pensions, healthcare and long-term care. According to Mary Daly the Lisbon process has put issues such as poverty and social exclusion on the political agenda of the EU. At the same time she identifies several competing visions of what is meant by these concepts: one that primarily focuses on low-wage labour and income support, and another one that primarily focuses on labour market exclusion and activation policy. Hence there is a need for more analytical clarity in relation to social policy initiatives at the level of the EU. While Hugh Frazer and Eric Marlier agree on the rather positive assessment of the Social OMC, they also identify several weaknesses. Most notably, the 440376 ESP22310.1177/0958928712440376Book ReviewsJournal of European Social Policy 2012

The Welfare State and Life Transitions: A European Perspective

Lifecourse research has acquired a greater importance in recent years. The availability of new datasets and new conceptual tools have yielded interesting sociological insights into different life stages. How are these transitions affected by welfare regimes? In this book, which originates from a European-wide research project, the editors have chosen a life course approach to examine the impact of different welfare systems on key life stage transitions. They distinguish between five transitions: (i) from education to first job, (ii) from parental household to independent living, (iii) transitions to family formation, (iv) from first job to employment career, and (v) from work to retirement. To examine these transitions in a comparative perspective, they have selected nine case countries on the basis of the varieties of capitalism and welfare typology. The UK has been selected as a ‘liberal’ welfare model. However, as Jill Rubery points out, such a generalised approach has its limitations. For instance, the UK has strong welfare elements in some areas such as income support or universal provision of free healthcare that differ significantly from the more ‘liberal’ US. In other areas, however, the UK welfare model provides insufficient support for different life transitions, including weak support for childcare and paid maternity or paternity leave. Although Germany and Austria are usually classified as conservative welfare states, there have been substantial changes to their ‘male breadwinner model’ as female employment has substantially increased. However, this has not yet found expression in a new coherent welfare policy. In the case of Germany, Gerhard Bosch and Andreas Jansen see ‘institutional bricolage’ as some policy reforms in the area of childcare coverage have been inspired by the Swedish experience, whereas recent labour market reforms have facilitated the emergence of a substantial lowwage sector which appears to be following the ‘American model’. In relation to Austria, Ingrid Maihofer suggests that the ‘male breadwinner model’ has been replaced by a ‘one-and-a-half ’ earner model as the labour market integration of women remains rather incomplete.