Abstract
This chapter compares two important migration corridors to Belgium in order to better understand variations across several dimensions of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants’ integration – in particular, the labour market, education, citizenship and residence. It provides insights on integration from the immigration country perspective as well as from the countries of origin, appraising the impact that Turkey and Morocco may have on the integration of their migrants in Belgium. The main findings are as follows. First, the countries of origin may have an impact on integration when emigration starts. Second, countries of origin may have a positive or negative impact on some integration dimensions (citizenship) but no obvious impact on others (education and labour market). In their efforts to develop and maintain links with migrants and to protect migrants’ rights abroad, countries of origin can facilitate integration, but only indirectly.
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Notes
- 1.
Population on 1 January 2013: 1,195,122 foreigners; source: National Register and General Direction of National Statistics (Vause 2014). In this report, we mainly use the term “migrant”, in keeping with the book’s focus on first-generation migrants. However, Belgian statistics refer to foreign nationality rather than to migration, and they do not include immigrants who became Belgian by naturalization.
- 2.
This was not the case for the agreement with Morocco, which would be completed by a technical cooperation agreement in 1965 and a social security agreement in 1968.
- 3.
Figures regarding irregular migrants are difficult to establish. During the period 1998–2004, 10,560 Moroccan and 5856 Turkish migrants were intercepted because they were “illegal” immigrants or asylum seekers (whether or not their applications were subsequently rejected) (EMN 2005). During the regularization campaign of January 2000, of the 37,152 applications (concerning around 50,000 migrants), 4.7% were from Turks and 14.5% from Moroccans (ibid.).
- 4.
The following figures are based on nationality (and not on ethnic background). They give an account of the number of Turkish and Moroccan nationals. As soon as they are naturalized as Belgians, immigrants appear only as Belgian in the National Register. These figures do not take into consideration the number of Turks and Moroccans who obtained refugee status or those who are undocumented.
- 5.
Law of 4 December 2012 modifying the Belgian Nationality Code in order to make the acquisition of Belgian nationality neutral from an immigration perspective. 14 January 2013 Royal Decree implementing the Law of 4 December 2014.
- 6.
http://www.diversitybelgium.be/impulse-fund#Doelstellingen%20van%20het%20Impulsfonds, visited on 31 March 2014.
- 7.
In Flanders, community and regional institutions are merged, and there is a policy developed at the Flemish level in Flanders; in Wallonia, there are two authorities dealing with integration: the Waloon government (regional level) and the Franch-speaking government (community level).
- 8.
The qualitative survey consisted of phone interviews with resource persons in organizations working with migrants. These interviews were based on pre-established questionnaires and were carried out with twenty-seven organizations working mostly with Turkish migrants and with twenty-four organizations mostly working with Moroccan migrants. Most of them were non-profit associations; others were international organizations, governmental organizations, trade unions or religious institutions. Most associations have been classified as medium to large or medium-sized organizations because of the number of migrants who contacted them.
- 9.
Even if the regions of migrants’ origins have diversified, there are still significant flows coming from these specific regions due to the phenomenon of chain migration.
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We are grateful for helpful comments from Agnieszka Weinar, Anne Unterreiner, Justyna Salamonska and Sona Kalantaryan on earlier drafts of this chapter.
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Gsir, S., Mandin, J., Mescoli, E. (2017). Countries of Origin as Organisers of Emigration: Moroccans and Turks in Belgium. In: Di Bartolomeo, A., Kalantaryan, S., Salamońska, J., Fargues, P. (eds) Migrant Integration between Homeland and Host Society Volume 2. Global Migration Issues, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56370-1_5
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