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Paradoxes of Integration: Female Migrants in Europe pp 17–36Cite as

Profiling Female Migrants in Europe: Categories of Difference

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Part of the book series: International Perspectives on Migration ((IPMI,volume 4))

Abstract

Using mainly official data, this chapter maps the position of female migrants in the labour market and society. It examines their comparative activity, unemployment, incomes and working conditions in order to contextualise some of the integration issues that have arisen with the new migration. Given the limitations of the official data, this chapter also focuses on irregular migration with particular emphasis on trafficking and informal employment in domestic services and prostitution. This chapter also critically evaluates the data generated by official European and national statistical institutions and national surveys on regular migration. Female migrant workers are concentrated in a narrow range of occupational sectors, and third-country migrant women in particular are over-represented in low-skilled, low-paid, vulnerable jobs and are more likely to be in part-time and temporary employment. The evidence indicates that third-country migrant women are incorporated into the labour market in particular ways which may reduce their ability to achieve long-term integration into both the labour market and wider society.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These statistics have to be interpreted with care since the SOPEMI data have not been standardised and are not therefore fully comparable at an international level.

  2. 2.

    This has not always been the case. In the 1960s and 1970s, most immigrant women came to northern European countries for work and generally had higher activity rates than native women. For instance, at some point in this period, foreign women had almost double the employment rates of German women (see Morokvasic 1993).

  3. 3.

    The EU13 group comprises Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The EU4 group comprises Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

  4. 4.

    The term ‘irregular’ was adopted by 21 countries after the 1999 International Symposium on Migration in Bangkok. However, there is still no broad consensus over the usage of terminology nationally and internationally.

  5. 5.

    There are various ways of estimating illegal migrant presence: ‘residual’ (differences between census results and alien registers and municipal registers), ‘multiplier’ (e.g. linked to border apprehensions) ‘demographic’ estimates (looking for traces of such migrants in official statistics; i.e. the nationality of birth rates, death rates and hospitalisation rates) and ‘indirect’ estimates (based on indicators such as the size of the grey economy, electricity consumption, etc.) (see Jandl 2003).

  6. 6.

     Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, University of Greenwich, Park Row, Greenwich, London, SE10 9LS, UK

    Ron Ayres

  2. Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK

    Tamsin Barber & Maja Cederberg

  3. University of Roehampton, Roehampton Lane, London, SW15 5PU, UK

    Floya Anthias

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  1. Ron Ayres
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  2. Tamsin Barber
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  3. Floya Anthias
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  4. Maja Cederberg
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Correspondence to Ron Ayres .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Westcombe Park Road, Blackheath 28, London, SE3 7RB, United Kingdom

    Floya Anthias

  2. Zu den Eichen 13, Hofheim/Ts, 65719, Germany

    Maria Kontos

  3. Boulevard de Sébastopol 8, Paris, 75004, France

    Mirjana Morokvasic-Müller

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Ayres, R., Barber, T., Anthias, F., Cederberg, M. (2013). Profiling Female Migrants in Europe: Categories of Difference. In: Anthias, F., Kontos, M., Morokvasic-Müller, M. (eds) Paradoxes of Integration: Female Migrants in Europe. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4842-2_2

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