Roads to Independence. Self‐Employed Immigrants and Minority Women in Five European States*
| Published date | 01 September 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.1991.tb01028.x |
| Date | 01 September 1991 |
| Author | M. MOROKVASIC |
Roads to Independence.
Self-Employed Immigrants and
Minority Women in Five European States*
M. MOROKVASIC
**
Within the context of economic restructuring in the transnational world economy and
the international division of labour, migrants have been socially constructed as a
vulnerable workforce at the mercy of capitalist protagonists of development: the
mainstream migration research in Europe for a long time focused on waged labour and
on temporary labour migrations. In the popular imagery immigrants have been mainly
those at the bottom: although there has been a considerable heterogeneity of work and
social situations, it is primarily the industrial and service proletariat (bottom fraction of
it) that has been established as the normative social condition for the migrant labour
force.
As
for immigrant women, their position in the society and in the labour market
has been defined as one of restricted opportunities, at the bottom of the job ladder,
marked by vulnerability, subservient status and dependency. Though there is much
evidence to support the multiple barriers and oppressive relationships these women
have to
cope
with, this approach has mostly contributed to their social construction as
victims. This in turn has had impact on migration research and policy making in gender
related issues.
With the gradual tendencies of immigrants towards settlement and with the transformation
of labour migration and generally, modification of
the
basic features of migratory flows
in the end of seventies and in the eighties (namely the presence of family members and
formation and strengthening of networks based on kinship), the focus moved to the
study of ethnic community formation and social networking and, with it, to self-
employment and ethnic business creation as one of its dimensions.
Self-employed immigrants and minorities represent only a small portion of those
active
in
the labour force and women, in the focus of the present article, even a smaller
*
This text is based on
a
comparative survey
of
access to self-employment of minority and
immigrant women in France, Federal Republic
of
Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Portugal
carried out in
1987/88
(Morokvasic,
1988).
Besides analysis
of
secondary material in these
countries, the focus
of
the investigation were biographical histories
of
82
women engaged
in independent activities and their networks.
I
would like
to
acknowledge here the financial
support
of
the Bureau
for
Equal opportunities
of
the Commission
of
European Communities,
Brussels.
**
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (France).
407
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