Irregular immigration: economic convenience and other factors
- 1 January 2008
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
- Vol. 14 (4), 557-572
- https://doi.org/10.1177/102425890801400404
Abstract
This article illustrates the factors leading to the entry of irregular immigrants and their integration into the labour market, that is to say: the economic convenience for both businesses and families of employing unauthorised manpower; the support from compatriot networks and ethnic economies; the embedded liberalism within democratic states' legal systems; the cost and organisational difficulty of controls and expulsion; and the part played by solidarity providers in civil society, including trade unions. Repeated mass amnesties especially in southern Europe, periodically regularise the situation of these migrants and function as the principal tool of migration policy. To this extent, the irregular immigrant appears to be a transitional figure, awaiting recognition and destined to obtain authorisation sooner or later. Trade unions are one of the social groups pushing for the enactment of regularisation measures. In this way they are asserting their attachment to the ideals of justice and solidarity, while at the same time combating the unfair competition which the hidden economy poses to law-abiding companies and declared workers.Keywords
This publication has 17 references indexed in Scilit:
- Migration Control and Migrant Fatalities at the Spanish-African BordersPublished by SAGE Publications ,2007
- Irregular Migration, Human Smuggling, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European UnionInternational Migration Review, 2007
- Theorizing Migration Policy: Is There a Third Way?International Migration Review, 2007
- Guestworkers in Europe: A Resurrection?International Migration Review, 2006
- Stepping from Illegality to Legality and Advancing towards Integration: The Case of Immigrants in GreecePublished by SAGE Publications ,2005
- Immigrants at the MarginsPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,2005
- Regularising undocumented immigrants in Greece: Procedures and effectsJournal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2003
- Migration and Community Formation under Conditions of GlobalizationInternational Migration Review, 2002
- Markets against politics: Migration, EU enlargement and the idea of EuropeJournal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2002
- Family and Personal Networks in International Migration: Recent Developments and New AgendasInternational Migration Review, 1989