Browsing by Subject "labour migration"

The study concentrates on living spaces and home in the context of labour migration among Estonian construction workers in Finland. Estonians are the biggest group of migrants in Finland (Statistics Finland, 2019), and from the perspective of labour migration a popular country for work, mainly due to financial reasons. The aim of this thesis is to find out how Estonian male construction workers’ living spaces and sense of home is transformed during labour migration and factors influencing it. Migration in the context of home has not been studied as widely as different migration processes in Europe and concepts of home. Liquid migration is one of the key concepts in current migration research in the European context, and it is used to present the migration background for this study. In more detail labour migrants’ reasons for migrating, decisions regarding staying in the host country and family and social aspects are covered. Three definitions of home are presented to cover the home theme. The analysis draws from Friberg’s (2012) framework on migration process and several conceptualizations of home. Data of the study consists of 6 semi-structured interviews carried out with male Estonian construction workers in Finland. The results fit into the framework of migration processes, with different aspects of home being important in every stage. In the initial stage, home stays in Estonia, although the men start to work in Finland. In the transnational commuter stage various characteristics of home become important in Finland, but as family stays in Estonia, home is there, too. For settlement stage, home shifts to Finland, if the decision is taken and family joins the migrant in Finland. In conclusion, various characteristics of home and labour migration processes are connected in different stages.

The European Union has agreed on implementing the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) principle in all policy sectors that are likely to have a direct impact on developing countries. This is in order to take account of and support the EU development cooperation objectives and the achievement of the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals. The common EU migration policy and the newly introduced EU Blue Card directive present an example of the implementation of the principle in practice: the directive is not only designed to respond to the occurring EU labour demand by attracting highly skilled third-country professionals, but is also intended to contribute to the development objectives of the migrant-sending developing countries, primarily through the tool of circular migration and the consequent skills transfers. My objective in this study is to assess such twofold role of the EU Blue Card and to explore the idea that migration could be harnessed for the benefit of development in conformity with the notion that the two form a positive nexus. Seeing that the EU Blue Card fails to differentiate the most vulnerable countries and sectors from those that are in a better position to take advantage of the global migration flows, the developmental consequences of the directive must be accounted for even in the most severe settings. Accordingly, my intention is to question whether circular migration, as claimed, could address the problem of brain drain in the Malawian health sector, which has witnessed an excessive outflow of its professionals to the UK during the past decade. In order to assess the applicability, likelihood and relevance of circular migration and consequent skills transfers for development in the Malawian context, a field study of a total of 23 interviews with local health professionals was carried out in autumn 2010. The selected approach not only allows me to introduce a developing country perspective to the on-going discussion at the EU level, but also enables me to assess the development dimension of the EU Blue Card and the intended PCD principle through a local lens. Thus these interviews and local viewpoints are at the very heart of this study. Based on my findings from the field, the propensity of the EU Blue Card to result in circular migration and to address the persisting South-North migratory flows as well as the relevance of skills transfers can be called to question. This is as due to the bias in its twofold role the directive overlooks the importance of the sending country circumstances, which are known to determine any developmental outcomes of migration, and assumes that circular migration alone could bring about immediate benefits. Without initial emphasis on local conditions, however, positive outcomes for vulnerable countries such as Malawi are ever more distant. Indeed it seems as if the EU internal interests in migration policy forbid the fulfilment of the PCD principle and diminish the attempt to harness migration for development to bare rhetoric.