Immigration, Labour Markets and Employment Relations: Problems and Prospects
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Author | Patrick McGovern |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00612.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
Immigration, Labour Markets
and Employment Relations:
Problems and Prospects
Patrick McGovern
Abstract
In this review essay, I argue that immigration presents employment researchers
with a promising strategic research site because it raises a number of theoreti-
cally significant problems with mainstream economic approaches to labour and
labour markets. Despite the tendency to view economic migrants as homo
economicus personified, I argue that immigration brings the institutional
nature of labour markets into sharp relief as it exposes, among other things, the
influence of the state, processes of labour market segmentation, and the role of
trade union policy and practice. Having identified a number of empirical anoma-
lies that contradict neoclassical economic theory, I proceed to sketch out three
areas where a more institutionally oriented approach should prove more fruitful.
1. Introduction
International migration, whether voluntary or involuntary, has become one
of the most prominent and controversial issues of the twenty-first century.
Much of its prominence may be attributed to the current wave of interna-
tional migration that has been building steadily over the past few decades. In
1960, for instance, there were approximately 75 million people living outside
their usual country of residence; by 2005 this figure had more than doubled
to 191 million.1At the same time, the number of countries that host a
significant number of migrants has also increased: in 1960 some 30 countries
hosted more than half a million immigrants each; by 2005 this too had
doubled to 64 countries (UN 2006: 1–2). However, even increases of this
magnitude cannot account for the controversy generated by the international
movement of people when compared with that of products, ideas or even
firms. Immigration, it seems, stirs age-old fears about outsiders or strangers,
Patrick McGovern is at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
45:2 June 2007 0007–1080 pp. 217–235
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
who, all too often, are blamed for society’s ills. Among other things, immi-
grants apparently take jobs, scrounge welfare benefits, launch crime waves,
and import ideas and practices that undermine the very fabric of society (e.g.
Littlejohn 2003; Phillips 2003).
Similar claims were made about earlier waves of immigration to Britain
and the United States during the nineteenth century, but these appear to have
been forgotten, possibly because the predicted fears never quite materialized
(see e.g. Bennett 1988; Curtis 1971). Unlike those earlier waves of migration,
the advent of the European Union and its common market for labour and
goods has compounded these fears by fuelling the belief that member-states
have lost the right to control their borders. In particular, the eastern expan-
sion of the European Union has generated a substantial East–West flow of
migrants which, when combined with the recent accession of Romania and
Bulgaria and the potential entry of Turkey, has turned migration into an
issue central to the future of Europe, if not the central issue (Favell and
Hansen 2002: 581).
As an academic subject, immigration closely resembles industrial relations
in that much of the research has been influenced by the policy concerns and
events associated with so-called social problems (Portes 1995: 2). Like other
applied subjects, both have attracted the attention of scholars from across the
social sciences and have generated a voluminous body of literature. However,
immigration is strangely neglected by industrial relations scholars and only
occasionally draws the interest of industrial sociologists.2This omission
becomes all the more striking once we acknowledge that immigration is, as
the legendary US labour leader Samuel Gompers insisted, fundamentally a
labour problem (Gompers 1925: 157). After all, most migrants move in order
to find work and much of the public concern about immigration focuses on
the labour market consequences of an influx of foreign labour. By contrast,
the influence of economics is becoming increasingly pronounced, not only
within the academic literature but also in the formulation of immigration
policy (Massey et al. 1998: 19).
This is not surprising in one respect as labour migrants are often described
as the closest living embodiment of homo economicus — that rational, self-
seeking, amoral agent who propels economic models of human behaviour. At
least on the surface, migrants appear to be motivated primarily by money
and, as they are separated from their original social environments, care little
about the status of their jobs, or the concerns of native-born workers. Nev-
ertheless, I would like to argue that even economic migration, with its appar-
ently economically driven behaviour, can be fruitfully examined without
succumbing to the seductive simplifications of neoclassical economics. In
particular, I wish to argue that immigration presents employment researchers
with a promising strategic research site (Merton 1973) precisely because it
raises a number of theoretically significant problems with approaches that
treat labour primarily as a commodity. More specifically, I shall argue that
immigration brings the institutional nature of labour markets into sharp
relief as it exposes, among other things, the influence of the nation state,
218 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007.
To continue reading
Request your trial