Migrant networks, language learning and tourism employment

This paper examines the relationship between migrants’ social networks, the processes of language acquisition and tourism employment. Data collected using netnography and interviews are used to identify the strategies that Polish workers in the UK use to develop their language skills. The paper highlights the roles played by co-workers, co-nationals and customers in migrants’ language learning, both in the physical spaces of work and the virtual spaces of internet forums. It also shows how migrant workers exchange knowledge about the use of English during different stages of their migration careers: prior to leaving their country of origin and getting a job, during their employment and after leaving their job. Implications for academic inquiry and human resource management practice are outlined.     

基于产业升级的劳动力移民转移培训研究——以天津滨海新区为例

随着被纳入国家经济发展战略,承载着中国经济发展第三级功能的天津滨海新区面临着产业升级的课题.产业升级引发对技能型人才需求的"井喷".本文论证了劳动力移民作为低端操作型技能人才后备军的可行性,论证了该群体的可培训性,考察了天津劳动力移民职业培训的现状,分析了存在的问题,并提出了相应对策.     

The migrant crisis in the Mediterranean Sea: Empirical evidence on policy interventions

This paper presents a novel set of empirical evidence to explore several hypotheses regarding the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. The political instability in transit countries, such as Libya, that made pre-existent repatriation policies ineffective, called for several search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean, which in turn have been wrongly accused of fostering illegal immigration and increasing deaths at sea. The empirical results show that the main determinants of the departures are several root causes at the departing African countries, underlining the importance of fighting human smuggling networks. The paper suggests a change in migration studies’ perspective, to leave behind the pull-and-push-factors narrative that is open to be politically slanted and to focus instead on the short-term versus long-term horizons of implementation of the policy interventions.     

Transnational migrant home visits as identity practice: The case of African migrants in South Africa

Focussing on the temporary journeys of transnational migrants in South Africa to their home countries on the continent, this paper explores the motivations, subjective experiences and perceived significance of these home visits for the migrants’ sense of identity and belonging. Based on a qualitative interpretive research approach, the study finds that memories and comparisons invariably underpin the experience of the home country, the encounter with the home and engagement with social relations. This induces new insights and sometimes ‘small epiphanies’ (Pearce, 2012), which can lead to self-reflection, self-transformative experiences and shifts in consciousness, affecting the migrant’s sense of belonging.     

农民工社会融合的概念建构与实证分析

论文建构了农民工社会融合的概念体系,并以此为基础对农民工社会融合的现状进行实证分析。社会融合包括文化融合、社会经济融合和心理融合三个维度,其中社会经济融合是方向无涉的,而文化融合和心理融合具有双向性。概念将市民纳入研究视野,为农民工融合状态的评估提供了标尺,有助于对农民工社会融合现状的准确理解。论文的重要发现包括：农民工文化融合的首选策略是融合策略,心理融合以融合型和融入型为主,制度障碍是导致农民工社会经济地位低下的重要因素。     

转型经济中劳动力迁移对非农就业的影响——中国农户调查数据的分析

基于2009年中国农村金融调查数据,本文建立多项Logit就业选择模型,识别劳动力迁移对返乡农民工非农就业的影响,并利用2008年9月之后返乡农民工样本考察劳动力迁移的潜在内生性及可能导致的估计偏误.本文发现:由于内生性的存在,导致劳动力迁移效应被高估约8.5个百分点.相比从未迁移的农村劳动力,劳动力迁移促使农民工返乡后更多地受雇于非农工作,而对自主创业的影响不大.在中国转型经济中,农村剩余劳动力向城市迁移后提高了非农产业技能,为农村非农产业的发展积累了人力资本.返乡农民工具有更多的金融资本和人力资本,将在中国独特的城市化建设中起到重要作用.     

农民工收入微观影响因素统计分析

利用在天津的问卷调查资料，运用多元分析统计方法，对农民工收入的微观影响因素进行分析、研究发现，农民工的户口状况、年龄、在本岗位的时间、经验、文化程度、企业的所有权形式以及合同有效期长度等都有显著统计意义。然而，在农民工内部，没有发现不同性别之问在收入上的显著性不同。据此，为政府统筹城乡发展提出一些建设性思路。     

Frontier-free Europe: a study of female migrants in the banking sector

Legislation on 'freedom of movement' guarantees the recognition of qualifications between countries of the European Union (EU), and is meant to provide migrants with access to employment in all member states. This paper reports on a study undertaken of EU migrant women in the banking sector in Britain, Germany and Spain. The discusses the experiences of migrants with regard to access to employment and positions abroad comparable to those held prior to migration. Migrants in this case experienced obstacles in the access to such employment. Although their experiences influenced by labour-market needs, findings suggest that the determining factors for barriers encountered were differences in the education and training cultures of countries pre- and post-migration, and the values and attitudes attached to these in of expectations by employers and migrants themselves.