Migration, crisis and the new global labour market.

Migration, Crisis and the New
Global Labour Market
Stephen Castles

Three stories – or four?
1. The restructuring of labour markets in rich
countries since the 1960s
2. The welfare state: decommodification and
recommodification of labour
3. The globalisation and hierarchisation of
citizenship
The overarching theme: the neo-liberal (counter)
revolution
4. The global economic crisis:
• the end of neo-liberalism?
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Labour market restructuring: phase 1
Expansion of manufacturing in core economies:
1945-mid-1970s
(The Fordist system)
• Concentration of workers in large factories
• Strong unions
• Secure employment and improved wages
• Welfare states to protect workers and families
Migrant workers (guestworkers / colonial workers):
– incorporated at lower levels
– Secure though inferior legal status
– Fairly good wages and welfare entitlements
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Labour market restructuring: phase 2
Post 1973 ‘oil crisis’: global economic restructuring
• New global investment strategy: capital export
• Labour-intensive production moved to new
industrial areas in Global South
• Decline of ‘rustbelt factories’ in Global North
• Decline of blue-collar working class / unions
• Reagan / Thatcher: neo-liberal attack on welfare
Migrant workers
– Guestworkers meant to leave – but stayed
– Zero-immigration policies in Europe
– New labour migrations in Asia, Gulf, etc
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Labour market restructuring: phase 3
From 1990s: drivers of migration to Global North
• Demographic: fertility decline and ageing
• Social: young Europeans have more choice in
education can reject menial work
• Economic: need for labour of all skill levels
• Globalisation: improved transport and
communications makes migration easier
Migrant workers:
– both high and low-skilled essential for high-tech
industry, services, care work etc.
– Migrants 12-25 % of workforce throughout Europe
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‘The riches are global, the misery is local’
New global class structure based on right to be
mobile (Zygmunt Bauman)
• Free movement for highly-skilled / entrepreneurs
• ‘Side-doors’ for medium-level skills
– Workers with trade skills
– Working holidaymakers
• Temporary or ‘circular’ migration for low skilled
– New guestworker systems (agriculture, catering)
– Contract workers in Middle East
• Irregular entry and employment:
– preferred by many employers – and governments!
• Exclusion of asylum seekers and refugees
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NYC: migration and the new economy
Early 20 th century: rise of manufacturing
– migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe:
– Garment, meatpacking, construction & transportation
– Factories (sweatshops) in ethnic neighbourhoods:
Little Italy, Lower East Side etc.
– Strong unions –partly based on ethnic solidarity
Early 21 st century: new economy
– New migrations from Caribbean, Asia and Africa
(often irregular)
– Production jobs outsourced: Mexico, China, etc.
– New jobs in retailing, personal services, etc.
– Sub-contracting, casual work, informalisation
– Fragmentation of ethnic solidarity
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The ‘new economy’
Neo-liberal ideology: worker status and pay
depend on ‘human capital’
Fragmentation of employment:
– Privileged formal sector for natives and highly-skilled
– Informalisation – e.g. catering, retail, care work
– Casualisation for women, youth, migrants
– Sub-contracting – e.g. construction, drivers
Labour market segmentation based on:
– Gender
– Age / location
– Origins and legal status
– Race/ ethnicity
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Citizenship and the welfare state:
DE-commodification
Rise of welfare regimes 1945-70s:
– Anglo-American liberal regime
– Conservative central and Southern European corporate regime
– Scandinavian social-democratic regime
Varying levels of de-commodification of labour:
• Social citizenship as a basic right
– Even in the USA: from New Deal to Great Society
• Welfare rights allowed working class to reject menial
work and exploitation
• Differing welfare regimes linked to variations in Fordist
production and industrial relations regimes.
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Citizenship and the welfare state:
RE-commodification
• Neo-liberal roll-back of welfare state since
1970s, linked to restructuring of global economy
• Re-commodification of labour through:
– Workfare regimes
– Differentiation of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor
– Differentiation on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity
and legal status
• Racialisation as:
– Instrument of differentiation of labour force
– Legitimation of inequality and impoverishment
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Globalisation of the nation-state
• The nation-state as a global norm:
– 50 nation-states in 1945
– 192 today
• But nation-state has less control of
boundaries
– Cross-border flows as part of globalisation
• State control of economy, welfare and culture
eroded
• Growth in international migration and multiethnic
populations
• Unitary nation-state belonging questioned:
– multiple identities, transnational communities
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Hierarchical citizenship
Most of the world’s people are citizens – for the
first time in history.
Citizenship equal in name but hierarchical in
fact:
– US citizens
– Citizens of other western states
– Intermediate and transit countries
– Poorest states
– Non-citizens – ‘unlawful persons’
Everybody has a passport –
but not all passports will allow you to cross borders
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Hierarchies of citizenship:
within nation-states
Citizens and nationals
– Members of the formal economy
– The working poor
– The undeserving poor
Denizens: migrants with jobs and acquired rights
Excluded migrants and minorities:
– Marginal employment (casual, temporary, subcontracting)
– Differentiated on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity,
origins, legal status
Asylum seekers and irregular migrants
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Hierarchies of citizenship:
between nation-states
between North and South
• ‘Naturalisation’ of inequality, chaos and ethnic
violence:
– Some peoples labelled as incapable of building
modern states and economies
– Economic globalisation as new ‘civilising mission’
– Poverty of some groups is inevitable
• Transnational racism
– Migrants from South as threat: terrorism, crime,
disease
– Legitimates border restrictions
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New social movements
NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS:
Dubai 21 March 2006
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hhouli who was killed with a friend in a motorbike crash with a police car that caused riots,
ed through Villiers-le-Bel carrying a banner at the front of the funeral procession that dema
15. Vast deployments of riot police restored calm to the troubled suburbs of northern Paris
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Paris: 29 November 2007

Nashville, Tennessee, 29 March 2006
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Political dilemmas of the new social
movements
• Not led by left parties
• Ambivalent role of trade unions
• Traditionalism and opposition to modernity
– Religious factors
– Cultural factors
– Fundamentalism and violence
• Fragmentation of ‘single issue’ movements
• Mistrust of left:
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Global financial crisis and migration
Short-term
• Return migration of some groups
– e.g. Poles from UK and Ireland
• Reduced migration from South to North
– Fewer Filipinos applying to migrate
• Declines in irregular migration (e.g. Mexico-USA)
• Reduced remittances by migrants to home countries
• Increased hostility to migrants in some host countries
– E.g. UK: Strikes against foreign workers
• Reduced recruitment of foreign workers
– E.g. South Korea: official stop to recruitment
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Global financial crisis and migration
Economic crises as migration turning points
• World Economic Crisis of 1930s:
– Sharp decline in migration
– Considerable return migration - often forced (USA, France)
– But many migrants stayed and settled permanently
• Oil crisis 1973
– Many migrants failed to leave – despite unemployment
– Turning point from labour migration to permanent settlement
– New industrial areas and new forms of migration
• Asian Financial Crisis 1997-99
– Few long-term effects on migration
KEY ISSUE: does crisis lead to fundamental change in
global economic strategy?
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The global economic crisis:
End of the neo-liberal dream?
• Short-term interruption to neo-liberalisation and
globalisation?
• Or major structural crisis, that will lead to fundamental
changes in global economy, politics and social relations?
A warning: Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation
• 19 th century market liberalism meant
disembedding of economy from society
• Result: a societal crisis fascism and war
• Globalisation as a new Great Transformation?
– But of the whole world this time
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THE END
Thank you for your attention
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