Abstract
Switzerland has recently adopted immigration policies that give preference to skilled migrants, the assumption being that migrants with higher education will integrate easily. Our study of 57 skilled immigrant women from Latin America, the Middle East and Southeastern Europe shows that this assumption is largely unjustified. Most of the women cannot use their social and cultural capital to establish themselves in the upper segments of the labour market. A third are not integrated in the labour market and a quarter occupy positions below their skill-level. A further third work at their skill-level but only irregularly. The differentiated participation of these immigrants in the labour market is well explained by analysing the interplay of class, ethnicity and gender.
Resumé
La politique actuelle d'immigration suisse met son accent sur les migrants qualifiés puisqu'il est présumé qu'ils pourront plus facilement s'intégrer. Notre étude de 56 femmes qualifiées provenant d'Amérique Latine, du Moyen Orient et d'Europe du Sud-Est montre que cette supposition est largement injustifiée. La majorité des femmes ne réussit pas à utiliser leur capital social et culturel pour obtenir des postes exigeant des qualifications. Un tiers n'a pas de travail, un quart occupe des postes au dessous de leurs qualifications et un autre tiers travaille à leur niveau de qualification mais irrégulièrement. Les différences d'insertion dans le marché du travail sont expliquées a partir d'un modèle qui intègre le rôle de classe, d'ethnicité et de genre.
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Notes
The term foreigner (living in Switzerland either temporarily or long term but not having Swiss citizenship), rather than immigrant (foreign-born) is used in Swiss legislation and statistics. This results from a citizenship law that is based on the principle of descent rather than on place of birth. Owing to such law and to restrictive naturalization practices, Switzerland has the second highest percentage of foreigners in OECD countries (22%). Over half of the 1.7 million ‘foreigners’ living in Switzerland in 2005 were either born and raised in the country or had lived there for more than 15 years (Swiss Federal Statistics 2006).
This article draws on a larger study, the “Social Integration and Exclusion of Immigrant Women in Switzerland,” carried out under the Swiss National Research Programme (NRP 51) on “Social Integration and Social Exclusion.” For details see http://www.giub.unibe.ch/sg/immigrantwomen.
One of the reasons that the ratio of family-related immigration to economic immigration is so high is that the number of employment immigrants is strictly limited by the Swiss government, whereas family migration is not so tightly controlled.
The civil rights of EU citizens have recently improved owing to the 2001 bilateral agreement between Switzerland and the European Union on the free movement of individuals. Besides immigration priority, EU nationals enjoy the same living and working rights as the Swiss except for voting. Immigration for non-EU citizens remains limited to skilled personnel, and their settlement and employment rights are weaker than those of EU citizens.
The “Gender Gap Index”, a survey of 58 countries worldwide published by the World Economic Forum in 2005, put Switzerland in 34th position, far behind most Western European countries and behind lower-income countries such as Costa Rica, Colombia, and Uruguay.
Interviews for this study were carried out in Bern in 2004 and in Zurich and Aargau in 2005.
Examples of the rare cases of women entering with a work visa are, first, an Argentine woman who was able to enter Switzerland to work because although she grew up in Argentina, her parents were of Swiss nationality, and second, a Bosnian woman who came in the early 1970s as a guest worker at a time of labour shortages in Switzerland.
Life stories span the periods of women growing up, studying and working in their countries of origin through to their decision to migrate and their subsequent experiences of socioeconomic integration in Switzerland.
Minga is a Quechua word that means “coming together for the betterment of the community”
Twenty-six of the Latin American women studied in their countries of origin and a further five obtained their degrees at university institutions in the UK, Russia, US, Argentina, and Germany.
These are the cases of women who prefer to create their own employment (e.g., freelance work as occasional translators, report writers or video producers) rather than being unemployed or of women who obtain occasional employment as replacement teachers or short-term project employees.
The women’s names have been changed to ensure anonimity.
Until 1991 foreign women automatically acquired Swiss citizenship with the conclusion of marriage with a Swiss citizen (whereas the foreign husband could only become Swiss by following the usual naturalisation procedure). Since 1992 both foreign women and foreign men who marry a Swiss citizen need to live in Switzerland for five years and be married for at least three years before applying for Swiss citizenship.
“VintA” is the official decree that regulates the principles and objectives of foreigners’ integration in Swiss society as well as the type and characteristics of federal subsidies used for that purpose.
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of this research by grant 4051140-69125 from the Swiss National Science Foundation, National Research Programme 51 on Social Integration and Social Exclusion. This paper was written with support of SNF-grant PIOI1–115231. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
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Riaño, Y., Baghdadi, N. Understanding the Labour Market Participation of Skilled Immigrant Women in Switzerland: The Interplay of Class, Ethnicity, and Gender. Int. Migration & Integration 8, 163–183 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-007-0012-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-007-0012-1
Keywords
- Skilled immigrants
- Labour-market participation
- Class
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Latin Americans
- Southeastern Europeans
- Middle-Easterners