INEQUALITIES INHERENT WITHIN THE MIGRATION PROCESS AND THE ROLE OF THE CITY IN SHAPING THE MIGRATION EXPERIENCE.
The migratory process is one that has defined the human species in its proliferation and settlement of the furthest reaches of the globe. Likewise, our sociality and interconnectivity have become vehicles for our education, creativity and production. Throughout history, however notions of civilisation have gradually organised the human species into larger and yet increasingly more regulated and defined social arrangements. The settlement of towns and cities, and the advent of nationhood has progressively restricted and curtailed the movements of its subjects and citizens both through physical fortification and cultural rhetoric. Nevertheless, the Freedom of Movement for all humans, is enshrined within the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 13.
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
(Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948)
As nation-states reserve the right of ingress for external migrants as a matter of their discretion, selective procedure is employed with the view to protect and benefit the receptive state.
A common criterion for the selection of viable migrants is that of perceived skill-level. The differentiation between exactly what constitutes ‘high’ and ‘low’ skill levels and their occupational counterparts is open for debate. General consensus however, designates it as quantified Human Capital, such as in Iredale (2000), based on one’s years, level and grade of formal education. Nations typically favour such ‘high-skilled’ migrants on the perception that their education willlikely make more of a contribution to society (Price and Benton-Short, 2007: 105) and that they will have the tendency to actively participate in, rather than stagnate, the state. Thus legitimising the movement and migration of a skilled elite.
That said, because the relative definitions of ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’ vary across nations and culture, each holding different values and dispositions – both internally and comparatively externally — “what is recognised as 'skilled' relative to 'unskilled ' in one context… may not be so in another” (Findlay and Gould, 1989: 6), the whole process is arbitrary at best, with no discernible absolute. This can lead to the phenomenon of the ‘deskilling’ of migrants, who end up working jobs that they are overqualified for, despite ostensibly being ‘highly-skilled’. Examples of this can be seen in (Iredale, 2000: 885). Critiquing of the terminology, one step further, Florida (2007) establishes that “foreign workers” no matter their skill level may bring different modes of creativity and “provide valuable services not available” to native workers (Florida, 2007: 39). He bases this notion on the premise that creativity is an “intrinsically human ability” (Florida, 2007: 38). This it is far from a complete picture of potential: it “overlook[s] extraordinary contributors made by entrepreneurs and cultural creatives who have not completed college” (Florida, 2007: 32). Thus it might be more pertinent to establish the notion of Creative Capital, not linked to the years of one’s learning, but the ability and willingness to learn.
The assumption that migration to a economically affluent country or city will result in increased profit is a common motivator. Jane Wills (2007) shows the flaw in this assumption, regarding a migrant worker from Nigeria: “at home… professional job in human resources, earning £150 a month;” now “working as a cleaner… the London Underground… earning £600.” (Wills, 2007: 130) However, whilst a migrant might nominally be able to earn more — even in such ‘deskilled’ roles — the difference is likely largely diminished by the increased cost of living in a global urban locations: as in the case study, where £300 is spent on rent alone, and money is also sent home to her family (Wills, 2007: 130). Moreover, migrant’s social life, sleep and their overall standard of living are often “'sacrificed' on the altar of wages” (Wills, 2007: 128), in order to justify the migration in terms of profitability. The fact that money was largely sent home to family as a stipend, and occasionally sent back in times of economic downturn (Wills, 2007: 128), absolutely ties the migrants to their homeland — in an inescapable mutual relationship of reliance.
Cities, in focus, offer potent examples that migration is not exclusively an international phenomenon. Sharon Zukin (1996) describes the positive effect of both internal migrants and immigrants, on cities in terms of their accumulation of cultural capital, which in turn ensures the renewal of stock in attracting a steady flow of further migrant labour to the city. She concludes that “if New York loses the dynamism of culture capital, the industry risks losing a labor supply of artists, actors, and other creative[s]… who migrate to New York from other parts of the country and the rest of the world” (Zukin, 1996: 186). These, typically considered, ‘unskilled’ or ‘semi-skilled’ migrants demonstrate how they positively provide the city with crucial labour, as well as a palpable and promotional identity. Likewise, Katherine Hampstead’s (2003) ethnographic study of New York City considers the dual importance of native and external migratory behaviour, in enforcing duality that perpetuates the migratory attraction to the location, that defines it. As a result of this mixture of multiculturalism and native artistry, world cities, like New York, become “cauldrons of creativity” (Florida, 2007: 159), regardless of skill-level.
Elements of Zukin’s (1996) work goes on to detail the disparity between native migrants and external immigrants and their attendant position in the hierarchy of jobs — in this case: “front” and “back” workers, in the restaurant trade (Zukin, 1995: 153-185). Providing qualitative evidence that whilst skill level is a considered predominant determiner of migratory value, so too can: ethnicity. Foremost is the prevalence of “native” labourers in the “front” section of the service and “ethnic” migrants in the “back”, that is largely hidden, out of sight from the clientele. However, certain nationalities are assumed to hold — on the basis of social capital established by the migratory chain (Hannerz, 1980: 267) — increased acceptability and legitimacy as workers, and therefore migrants: “‘Egyptian waiters… They have class. They’re great waiters. They have great table manners. They’re all that way.’” (Zukin, 1995: 174) while, “Bangladeshi immigrants, like Mexicans, lack English-skills, ‘urbane’ manners and the European or culturally ‘white’ appearance.” (Zukin, 1995: 173) This establishes that, while there is mention of certain skills owned by the individual, they are largely attributed specifically to the context of their nationality, ergo skill-level is not alone in determining migratory potential. Furthermore, together, this demonstrates the necessity for such a worker — multicultural, semi-skilled (such as artists, and those waiters with foreign degrees) — as an important functionary in the sustenance of the city.
It is suggested that the export of low-skilled migrants is particularly beneficial to source countries (Hugo, 1995: 296), not only in removing a saturation of the unemployed, but moreover in terms of return migration, whereby skills and cultural capital are acquired during migration and of the benefit of the source state: (Dustmann, Bentolila and Faini, 1996). This in turn alleviates the risk of a ‘brain drain’ on the source nation in the long run, and, in fact can be said to constitute a brain-gain (Hugo, 1995: 296). This hypothesis holds so long as return migration is deemed attractive, as this acquisition of skills may actually be detrimental to prospective employment back in the country of origin, do to over-qualification (Laczko, 2002: 606), not to mention the prospect of lower wages — the likely cause of emigration in the first place.
Conversely, the host state can be seen to benefit from the immigration and non-return of ‘low-skilled’ immigrants in the long run. It is evidenced that such settled migrants follow a trend of investing in the second generation’s education “low-skill immigrants frequently turn into high-skill immigrants as first-generation American parents invest in their children’s education” (Florida, 2007: 84). Thus the admission of low-skilled immigrants can be doubly beneficial to a host state in providing immediate relief to unemployment and the delayed gratification of the future innovation systematically associated with the contribution of highly skilled (Florida, 2007: 84). Thus it is possible for ‘low-skilled’ migrants to find a place both within and without their homeland.
Prejudice is often rife towards immigrants and temporary migrants. Justification for public opinion can be found in Florida’s (2007) examples, where nationhood and nationalism rises at times of turmoil: civil wars, world wars and terrorism (Florida, 2007: 70). One might add to this: economic downturn, as seen in “only when economies in the employing countries deteriorate considerably… especially when unemployment here has become rampant” (Marx, 1986: 18), in which jobs become scarce, and thus ‘natives’ are forced to compete with migrants for any available jobs. Recent data collected and published by YouGov for the Sunday Times, demonstrates the negativity of UK public opinion on immigration: with 63% responding agree that a maintenance or increase of ‘people with high education, skills and looking for work’ in the UK, in contrast to a 13% for ‘people with low education, skills and looking for work’ (YouGov, 2013). Although, current sentiment is unfavourable towards immigration in general, there is a noticeably stark difference between the two figures. Ergo, the well-educated and ‘highly skilled’ are largely (although far from completely) allowed to circumnavigate the external otherness of their nationality and immigrant status.
Whether seen as cause or effect, respectively, both public opinion and government policy and its propaganda do little to demonstrate the actual truth. For example, recent statements made by the current government in the UK (Wintour, 2013) — and since joined by policy put forward by France and Germany (Mason, 2013) — is the intention to curb so-called ‘benefit-tourism’: migrants and immigrants who arrive in a country and reap the rewards of social welfare, without contributing. The intention to limit the social welfare benefits of new immigrants to the country, in the hope that fewer come. This discourse, while not exclusive to, is in relation to ht European Union’s Right to Free Movement of Workers, and the 7 year deadline of limitations on the rights of citizens of recently ascended EU states, in this case Bulgaria and Romania (Wintour, November 2013). However, it can easily pointed out that it is in fact “the obligation of the new migrant's native country to pay unemployment benefit” (Perkins, 2013), in terms and relevance here to the European Union. This plain sight truth often, laughably, misconstrued by rhetoric. Regardless of this overlooked detail, the fact remains that migrants and permanent immigrants in particular are not actually international brigands who live off the welfare state. In fact, all evidence does indeed contrast public opinion: “Evidence from the EU, says there is no correlation between levels of unemployment benefit and immigration” (Wintour, March 2013). So they are, in fact, by definition: migrant workers.
However, this admission far from clears up the issue. One of the most popular and falsely perpetuated notions is the cliché of immigrants taking jobs away from the native populous, as in the “anti-immigrant alliance composed largely of the right-wing… and the tabloid press.” (Zincone, Pennix and Borkert, 2011: 49) such as, sensationalist headlines of: “Immigration to Britain is greater than at any time in history. We must cut their numbers NOW” (Daily Mail, 2012). That said, the saturation of the labour market is rarely a complete untruth, and indeed immigrants do of course — as said — take jobs. The fact is, migrants galvanise — through social capital and migratory chains — typically to fill gaps in the labour market. Nonetheless, discourse at times of economic hardship, as aforementioned by government and the commentary media propagate the fallacy: “The British government has been accused of pandering to prejudice” (Wintour, March 2013), thus there is a reluctance to accommodate low-skilled migrants in particular, who are seen more and more as a burden on the state. Moreover, it is evidence of the state’s ability to scapegoat a demographic with the intention of patching up its failures.
And typically are more willing to work jobs that are either too under-waged, for the overeducated populous or those that follow the “dirty, difficult, dangerous" principle (Hugo, 1995: 294), and are deemed undesirable for a native worker. In fact, moreover, immigrants taking these jobs — which already enhances much needed production, especially if an economy is flagging — actually helps create new jobs, and new markets: (Muller, 1994 :143). Thus, increased migration can be doubly beneficial for a host state, particularly ‘low-skilled’ migrants who are unlikely to reject the described undesirable jobs out of haughtiness, and accept them out of necessity.
In particular, the filling of niches with labour markets can be achieved by the process of Circular Migration, by which migratory individuals divide their time between two or more locales. This type of migrant seeks to utilise seasonal availability of work and the aforementioned vacancy of many low-skilled labour jobs. Often this takes the form of agricultural work in richer countries (Florida, 2007; Hugo, 1995; Triandafyllidou, 2013), and returning to their country of origin at the season’s end. Other occupations might include street-peddling or work in the service industry made busy by tourism (Triandafyllidou, 2013: 223), another aspect of globalisation. However, despite transitory nature, this category of migrant often codifies a ‘home’ locale, supporting their — like many others — a family with the income earned in foreign regions. (Triandafyllidou, 2013) Thus the individual is tethered to a home country, or base, from which they cyclically migrate: always returning. As a practice it is indeed most common amongst “low or semi-skilled” migrants, whose skill-set is often best utilised on a seasonal basis — whether through agriculture, industry or tourism — and whose work is transitory, and replaceable.
The main beneficiary however, can be said to be the host states themselves: “circularity clearly fills a labour market niche without raising the challenges of long-term migrant integration” (Triandafyllidou, 2013: 218-219). This kind of migrant comes readymade, in the sense that the host state need not spend on education or social welfare — and yet benefit from their labour and taxation. Countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece recognise these Functionalist merits in employing a steady stream of this type of worker, fostering international migratory programmes, policy and marketing with partner, source countries such as Morocco and Albania (Triandafyllidou, 2013).
Unfortunately for the migrant, being of such a transitory nature, this process leaves them in, at worst, a kind of de facto statelessness. Dependent on reintegration policies, a circular migrant may not be afforded the same level of state benefits in their homeland — such as pension schemes or medical insurance, for example — and are unlikely to actively participation in domestic national politics (Triandafyllidou, 2013: 217). Thus despite being tied by kinship to their homeland and accumulating economic and human capital, a circular migrant is not afforded the full state welfare benefits. Beyond the income sent home and any savings, individuals are unlikely to have a pension in any country set up, or any property.
Urbanisation can be seen as an instrumental driving force behind the creation and sustenance of nationhood. National borders can be seen as an extension of city fortification of antiquity: “protected populations against real and imagined threats from outside… united the enclosed community, binding them with a common sense of identity and shared purpose.” (Smith, 2012: 60) A description synonymous between the two boundaries, both metaphorically and physically. Borders, then, by extension are not just designations of territory and collectivity, but also barriers against the outside world: the other. Nigel Harris (2003) elaborates that “borders become brutalised, militarised, and criminalised in order to intimidate any who propose to enter” (Harris, 2003: 4466) This is a modernisation of Smith’s assertion that city “walls also created fertile ground in which seeds of suspicion and even paranoia could grow.” (Smith, 2012: 61) Likewise, combined with borders, governmental policy — as aforementioned — “seems almost deliberately designed to provoke the greatest xenophobia” (Harris, 2003: 4470), in its constant crusade to paint immigrants as illegal and freeloading. In fact, importantly, mention is made of low-skilled migrants too: “fortified borders represent a permanent war against… attempt to meet the demand for low skilled workers - with the same discouraging results…” (Harris, 2003: 4466). So then, cities — seats of political and economic power — become a microcosm for the fortified nation that discourages and alienates immigrants.
The global epidemic that is Human Trafficking (Clinton and Cdebaba, 2011; Lapham’s Quarterly, 2009) can be divided into two distinct categories: Smuggling and Abduction. For the purposes of migration only the former applies, in that it is largely the willing attempt of migrants, and refugees, to cross borders illegally — rather than being forced to do so. A huge criticism of the generalised biased policy towards ‘high-skilled’ migrants over ‘low-skilled’ migrants is that “the demand for unskilled workers in agricultural, construction, industry and services is also high, but many states fail to recognize [sic] this, so that workers have to move through illegal channels” (Castles, 2004: 211). Thus the exclusionary haughtiness of receptive states and their policies created ostensibly to curb torrents immigration has something of an inverse, unwarranted effect.
Furthermore, this problem has been given thrust by the fact that immigration, and its control and limitation, has become so ingrained in political discourse. As a burgeoning
of public opinion: “managing the contradiction that Japan [for example] desperately needs unskilled workers, while public opinion will not accept a labour recruitment policy” (Castles, 2004: 215). In effect, an inescapable loop is created, that actually forces states to spend more of its annual budget on policing its borders and investigating trafficking rings. Ergo, overregulation of skill-based migratory behaviour, biased against the typically more desperate ‘low-skilled’ migrants creates a far more serious, illegal and potentially expensive problem.
Another result of public discourse and misconstrued law is that, of course, trafficked individuals are reluctant to report their situation, not just in fear of their traffickers, but also from reprisals of the host state: “they find themselves treated as criminals by… authorities” (Lakhani, 2007). Not only does this leave the extent of the issue relatively unreported, moreover it allows for the cycle to go largely unnoticed. That is not to say that the problem is unpreventable. Beyond the costliness of increasing policing and federal investigation of this black market, there is also a consensus that “smuggling and trafficking… irregular migration in general, could be reduced if there were more regular migration channels open” (Laczko, 2002: 599). Such channels, and organised integration procedures — such as the setting up of NGOs as seen in Japan, a documented beneficiary of unskilled immigration (Selleck, 2001) and hotspot human traffic destination (Clinton and Cdebaba, 2011) — would be relatively cost-effective in so much as passing any regulation or law is. It could likely also better facilitate circular migration, and its inherent benefits, both aforementioned social and economic, over permanent immigration.
Consequently, it may seem like a conundrum that states, particularly those seen to be suffering from an ageing and over-educated population, not to better provision circular migration and its adherent advantages, to both state and individual. Moreover, simply and ethically, to curb the exploitation and abuse of persons through the global Trafficking epidemic (Clinton and Cdebaba, 2011). However, “policies that claim to exclude undocumented workers may often really be about allowing them in through side doors and back doors, so that they can be more readily exploited” (Castles, 2004: 223). So it seems that governments often institute restrictions on migratory behaviour not so much to curtail the phenomenon but drive it in a particular, more profitable, direction.
Of course the illegality of trafficked immigrants and unauthorised aliens allows for increased production through the filling of vacant occupations, lower and unregulated wages thereafter and no access to any form of welfare in the interim; as a result the state wins out in all areas, notwithstanding, the expense of policing. Although, all evidence points to being this being a fairly overlooked and unsuccessful pursuit (Dugan, 2011). Since the majority of smuggled migrants are those belonging to the ‘low-skilled’ cohort there is the suggestion that — whilst migration remains ostensibly for the ‘high-skilled’, in legitimacy — such policies are designed to facilitate the migration, supply and exploitation of a suppress, cheap ‘low-skilled’ labour underclass.
Likewise, through enforcement of controlled borders, it can be argued that the states are not so much hindering immigration proper but rather circular, transitory migration. Because the cost and risk of cross militarised international borders is so great, migrants set to mind are increasingly likely to cross the border oneway, rather than attempt to return home or remain transient. It is this act of “locking in… undocumented aliens” (Scharf, 2006: 159) that Wonders (2007) notes as “ensuring the stability of a cheap labor force and the continued exploitation of economic migrants” (Wonders, 2007: 42) Facilitating this, then, allows for a combination of benefits to both state and employer. Not only is gross production increased as illegal immigrants fill the most undesirable and vacant jobs, but allows them at a far cheaper rate; since unauthorised person have no constitutional rights in the host country, they are not entitled to either labour rights such as minimum wage or adequate provisions for health and safety, or social security and likely healthcare.
Just as borders seem almost intentionally designed to prevent immigrants from leaving in as much as they are to prevent it in the first place, it also helps perpetuate the growing problem of brain drain; augmented by the fact both high-skilled, and low-skilled with newly acquired social and human capital, cannot return home: “very high rates of medical brain drain for a number of small developing countries” (Ivlevs and De Melo, 2010: 112).
As a result, a primarily effected country, the UK’s “National Health Service, which devotes a high percentage of its funding to providing healthcare for the elderly, has already begun to recruit nurses from abroad and relies heavily on foreign doctors.” (Laczko, 2002: 604). Nevertheless, where the benefits of such immigration is patent for the importing state, as with any occupational group, the exportation of migrant doctors has implications for the source country. John Connell’s (2007) ethnographic study of migrant health workers exported from the Caribbean and Pacific illuminates an example of this issue. “represent classic examples of the brain or skill drain” (68).
However, so long as this practice is not too extensive and does not deplete the stock of any group of labourers, “developing economy a brain drain of skilled labour may raise the welfare of the economy while an emigration of unskilled labour may be welfare reducing”. (Chaudhuri, 2004: 730) It is as if ‘low’ or ‘unskilled’ labour plays a fundamental role in society, something that seems unthinkable in political rhetoric. Thos demonstrability of its own kind of ‘brain drain’ of sorts, a stagnation in production, solidifies the importance of the ‘low-skilled’ migrant in the global market. Therefore, in totality considering that a careful balance of different levels of worker, and indeed migrants of different backgrounds and origins — domestic and international — must be found: “a more liberal trade regime with internationally immobile capital will result in a labour force with a more favourable skill mix” (López and Schiff, 1998: 335).
Considering the evidence it is clear that the international labour market absolutely needs the migration of low-skilled labour, in as much as it does high-skilled labour. The exportation and importation of each is at different times a necessity and a burden, in different locations. The maintenance, globally, therefore requires not only the cooperation of a multitude of nations — all nations — but moreover a rejection of the bias towards human capital as the only means of judging value. Skilled workers, of all grades, therefore demonstratively valuable each in their own way, are a necessity: “Diversity is not merely enjoyable; it is essential” (Florida, 2007: 35), and their absence: to the detriment.