Transcript Differential paths to successful socio

Differential paths to
successful socio-economic
integration in a new host
country. The case of Greece.
Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou
Assistant Professor, Democritus University of
Thrace, Greece
Senior Research Fellow, ELIAMEP, Athens
Countries of Origin
Percentages
Albania
55,67%
Bulgaria
4,67%
Georgia
2,91%
Rumania
2,90%
USA
2,82%
Cyprus
2,40%
Russia
2,29%
United Kingdom
1,92%
Germany
1,92%
Ukraine
1,78%
Poland
1,68%
Pakistan
1,40%
Other
14,39%
Main reasons for settlement
Main Reasons for Settlement
0%
Employment
22%
1%
Repatriation
Family Reunification
3%
Studies
54%
13%
Seeking Asylum
Refugee
7%
Other
Albanian immigrants in the Greek
labour market
During the 1990s:
Men: unskilled farm work,
construction, odd manual jobs
on a daily wage basis
Women: cleaning homes and
offices on a daily wage basis,
carers for elderly people and
less often for children, tourism
and catering industry
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Since 2000:
Men: semi-skilled work in
construction (masons),
unskilled and semi-skilled work
in farms, transport services,
skilled independent work
(plumbers, electricians etc.)
Women: cleaning on a daily wage
basis, carers, employment in
tourism and catering, also
staying at home (housewives)
Both men and women:
employment in small firms,
independent employment
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Factors and features of new
employment situation of Albanians
Factors for upward mobility:
increased language skills
legalised their residence status
better understanding of employment possibilities
Employment is increasingly legal with insurance benefits
for those employed in construction and firms (catering,
tourism, small manufacturing)
Informal work prevails in cleaning jobs at private
households and probably in agriculture (seasonal
employment)
Special features of Albanians’
insertion in the labour market
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Albanian women are seldom employed as babysitters
but they are more often employed as carers for elderly
people or cleaners – blatant or implicit racism/prejudice
against Albanians
Age and gender factor: elder men are unemployed, elder
women work as carers
Younger women if their economic situation permits it stay
at home to raise their children (absence of possibility for
professional upward mobility, outside the cleaning and
caring sector and probably traditional family structure
and customs)
The role of the state in the insertion of ethnic
Greek Albanian workers in the labour market
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Distinction and positive discrimination in favour of ethnic
Greek Albanians
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since the early 1990s ministry and police circulars protecting
ethnic Greek Albanians from deportation
as of 1998, special decree creating the Special Identity Card for
Coethnics issued for 3 years, valid to travel in Schengen, with
full socio economic rights and relative security of residence
It is impossible for the time being to assess the
differential insertion of ethnic Greek Albanians and
‘other’ Albanians as in all data they appear as Albanian
citizens
The role of the state in the insertion
of ‘other’ Albanians in the Greek
labour market
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Police reports and the media contribute to the linking of
Albanians with criminality – no state sanctioning of these
measures
Very limited measures in the field of intercultural
education in mainstream schools (tolerance of
difference) – though positive stance of the Ministry on
the ‘flag issue’ in school parades
Defective policy in the field of issuing/renewal of stay
and work permits
Impossibility or lack of political will to combat informal
employment (structural feature of the Greek economy)
Concluding remarks on the case of
Albanians
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Gradual and slow upward professional and socio
economic mobility
Women of the first generation move from cleaning and
caring to staying at home
Men have moved from daily wages and informal jobs to
formal work, dependent employment, and social
insurance contributions
Some development of entrepreneurship in the form of
catering services (cafes etc.), grocery stalls in markets,
corner shops in Athens, transport services (buses)
No involvement in trade or other type of businesses
Poles in Greece
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According to the national census data
(www.statistics.gr), there were 12,831 Polish citizens in
Greece in 2001 of whom 5,876 (46%) are men and
6,955 (54%) are women. In an interview given to the
Warsaw Voice (a web-based magazine
http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/1716 ), Greece’s
Ambassador to Poland estimated Poles between 40,000
and 50,000 in 2003. It is highly likely that there are at
least three times as many Poles in Athens, if not a figure
closer to the 100,000 estimated by most researchers.
Employment situation of Poles in Greece
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Before 2004: largely undocumented workers
Initially aimed for a short stay
People who come are semi-skilled (secondary or technical
education degrees completed) with or without prior work experience.
They mainly moved to improve their economic situation although
some young people came for a working holiday and stayed
Seasonal jobs throughout Greece, mainly in the agricultural sector
or in catering and tourism services,
long-term migrants concentrate in the Athens conurbation.
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Men: in the wider construction sector
Women: in domestic service but also at bars and nightclubs.
Preliminary findings of a recent qualitative
study (Christou, Triandafyllidou and Gropas, 2007)
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Since 2004: legalising their status as economically independent
persons
Since 2006: full freedom of movement, gradual disappearance of
undocumented status.
Still, women continue their employment in cleaning and caring
services at households, largely without welfare insurance (but they
have health insurance through their husbands’ job)
Future plans: the ‘ideology of return’ is pronounced, at least in the
long term. No plans to move elsewhere in the EU
Their children feel fully integrated in Greece and do not exhibit any
feelings of an immediate or strong sense of belongingness to Poland
– a factor that runs against the wish of returning.
Impossibility of immediate return for economic and employment
reasons
The social context of Polish migrant insertion
in Greece
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Motivations:
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better earnings and aspirations for a middle class lifestyle,
 pleasant lifestyle in a Mediterranean country,
 EU membership of Poland significantly improving their immigration
status, possibility to make plans for the future.
 overall friendly social environment in which they were inserted
(including fellow Poles but also locals)
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On the part of the Greek state:
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Problems in their transition into EU citizen status: public administration
was not informed, no circulars issued on time
 no special concern with Poles – stereotyping by the media was positive:
better educated, better skilled, good and honest workers, people who
come from a «civilised» country (contrasted to ALbanians who were the
‘bad guys’)
Concluding Remarks: comparing
Albanians with Poles
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Albanians: numerous and highly visible, Poles: less numerous and
less visible
Historical relations between Greece and Albania, and geographical
proximity paradoxically fuelled negative stereotyping
The Poles who came were lower middle class semi skilled, the
Albanians who came included both lower and higher middle class,
unskilled, semi skilled workers and University graduates
Poles had higher social capital (networks dating since 1980s) and a
better status (perceived as Europeans also before EU m/ship)
Albanians had low social capital (mistrust between Albanians, only
kinship networks) and a very negative status (Albania as a backward
country and an ‘enemy’ of Greece)
Each group followed a different
migration path:
 Poles
undocumented but socially and economically
integrated, did not wish to legalise, moved directly to
EU citizenship
 Albanians undocumented tried to legalise as soon as
they were given a chance, and engaged into upward
socio-economic mobility. Their efforts were hampered
by uncertain legal status
 The Greek state did not take special provisions for
any of the two groups. However, it did not protect (on
the contrary it probably fuelled) Albanians from
negative stereotyping and stigmatisation.