Dynamic Flows on Unequal Labour Markets: Immigrant Careers in Swedish Metropolitan Regions

1. Dynamic Flows on Unequal Labour Markets:Immigrant Careers in Swedish Metropolitan Regions Charlotta Hedberg, Department of Human Geography Stockholm University Liverpool 19-21 June 2006

2. Starting points • ”Spatial pockets of entrenched joblessness” (Martin and Morrison 2003: 6) • Economic integration in Sweden • Foreign born: employment rate 61,5 % (2004) • Area based policy: distressed neighbourhoods • Static picture of immigrant employment

3. Objectives • How is immigrant employent actually shaped? • What patterns of entrance, continuity and exit on the labour can be found? • To study immigrant labour markets from a dynamic perspective • How is the labour market constituted? • How to think about labour mobility and population geography? • How to use longitudinal datasets? • Findlay (2003: 185): ”New data sources have provided excellent opportunities for innovative modelling work and theorisations of populations in space and time”.

4. Preliminary aim and research questions • The project aims to describe and explain patterns of labour mobility for individuals with immigrant background: • What is the “speed” of finding a (first) job? • What is the stability of jobs? • From which livelihood positions (unemployment, education, social allowance, etc.) do individuals enter the labour market? • How is the labour market constructed for various social categories? • Groups of focus: immigrant background, young cohort, gender • Group of reference: county region (Stockholm/Malmö) • Why..?

5. Conceptualising the labour market • Population mobility as a constituent of the labour market ”Local labour markets are not exogenous, pre-given entities […] within which various labour processes take place. Rather, they are highly endogeneous in nature, being actively and continously constructed through the very processes that take place within them” (Martin and Morrison 2003:8). • Dynamic space (Massey 1999) - dynamic labour markets (Peck 1989; Hanson and Pratt 1992) • Social actors and spatially situated • Embedded networks (Granovetter 1985; Peck 2005) • Segmented labour markets (Peck 1989; Morrison 1990) • Discrimination • Time geography (Hägerstrand 1975) • Individual life biograhpies within ”fields of prevailing distributional forces” • Livelihood positions and budget restrictions in space-time

6. Some operationalisations • Hägerstrand (1975) • Livelihood positions: employment, unemployment, study, pension, social allowance, etc. • Budget restrictions: travel-to-work-area, ”rigid structure of options” • Labour markets as socially constructed and spatially situated (Hanson and Pratt 1992, etc) • Structures of gender and ethnicity • Travel-to-work-area (restrictions) • Labour market entry (discrimination)

7. Research design • Case study design • Three ”distressed neighbourhoods” (Rinkeby, Flemingsberg, Rosengård) • Population with immigrant background (PIB) • Young finishing school in 1993 • Young not finishing upper secondary school • Reference groups: • Greater Stockholm and Malmö regions • Time analysis • 1993-2002 • Sequences of livelihood positions (employment, unemployment, pension, etc.) • Mixed methods apporach • Quantitative, mainly descriptive analysis • Qualitative interview study

8. Data material • Longitudinal, geocoded data base (PLACE) • All individuals • Neigbourhood level • Place of work • Income tax return • 30 interviews • Immigrants who reside and have reisded in the case study areas • Biographical approach

9. Definition • ”Immigrant” • Quantitative study: Immigrant background • Foreign born or both parents born in a foreign country • Interview study: Self definition

10. Flemingsberg Pop. 7811 PIB: 4541 (58,1 %) PIB 16-64: 2923 Place of birth W. Europe (28,1 %) Finland W. Asia (23 %) Turkey Young leaving school 1993 (IB): 25 Young not finishing school (at all) (IB): 43 (44,3 % of cohort) Population in the case study areas Rosengård • Pop. 13 776 • PIB: 11 321 (82,2 %) • PIB 16-64: 6174 • Place of birth • E. Europe (35,9 %) • Yugoslavia • Poland • W. Asia (29,5 %) • Libanon • Iraq • Sweden (11,5 %) • Young leaving school 1993 (IB): 67 • Young not finishing school (at all) (IB): (51,4 % of cohort) Rinkeby 1993 • Pop.: 13 091 • PIB: 11 375 (86,9 %) • PIB 16-64: 7412 • Place of birth • W. Asia (35,4 %) • Turkey • Iran • W. Europe (22,1 %) • Greece • Finland • Africa (12,6 %) • Ethiopia • Somalia • Young leaving school 1993 (IB): 82 • Young not finishing school (at all) (IB): 163 (49,8 % of cohort)

11. Livelihood positions Stockholm region

12. Livelihood positionsMalmö region

13. Livelihood positions Young leaving school, Stockholm

14. Livelihood positions Young leaving school, Malmö

15. Livelihood pos. among young not finishing school, Stockholm

16. Livelihood pos. among young not finishing school, Malmö

17. Employment among categories

18. But – where did they live in 2002?!

19. Work and out-migration

20. Next step • How much of this difference does gender explain? • How does this pattern look for newly arrived immigrants in middle age? • In what sectors did they work? • From what positions did they enter the labour market? • Follow typical individual life histories • Aggregation of categories

21. Aggregation of life paths – individual combinations How to generalise these in order to follow the individual as close as possible? Individual life paths 1993-2002Young leaving school in Rinkeby 1993

22. Preliminary conclusions • When using longitudinal data it is possible to see dynamic tendencies of immigrant employment • Finish upper secondary school is important for all young people to enter the labour market, but it is most important for immigrant youth • Young immigrants who finish school in Flemingsberg enter the labour market to a higher degree than all other groups • Young immigrants in Rinkeby have fast or ”middle position” – which is better than perhaps expected • Immigrants from Rosengård experience particular difficulties on the labour market • Immigrants who are employed seldom remain as residents in the case study area • Rosengård and young cohorts in particular