Nancy A. Naples, University of California – Irvine
Introduction: Economic restructuring contributes to a shifting international division of labor that is reshaping the racial-ethnic composition of communities across the U.S. Mexicans have been particularly hard hit by the processes of displacement and wage depreciation in regions across their country. As a consequence of their displacement from other regions coupled with the development of low wage food processing and related industries in the rural Midwest, Latinos are forming a growing proportion of migrants to the Midwest.1 As a result rural communities in the Midwest with a traditionally white European American population have …

Terrie E. Givens, University of Washington
Summary: The rise of radical right parties in Western Europe has led to the politicization of issues such as immigration, making them more salient to voters. The radical right has been skillful in some countries in using the issues of immigration and unemployment to increase its vote share. In using immigration as an issue, radical right parties, particularly in France and Austria, have been able to attract mainly young male voters, who are often referred to as “modernization losers.”
Although the radical right has been successful in some countries, there has been an ongoing gender gap …

Julie Watts, Scripps College
Working Paper #5»

Holk Stöbbe, University of Göttingen – Germany
Summary: I am going to focus my presentation on the German case and will only make a few cross-references to the situation in the U.S., since the U.S. case has been discussed thoroughly elsewhere. First, a brief overview of some of the literature and methods used will be given. Secondly, this paper will show that a theory of undocumented migration is, if not inexistent, then at least still under construction. Thirdly, the pitfalls of quantitative data on undocumented migration are to be demonstrated. Finally, the paper will present some of the policies in Germany …

Cristóbal Mendoza, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Summary: The paper observes African labour outcomes in the light of different immigration policies of Portugal and Spain. The comparison between Portugal and Spain illustrates two ‘sensibilities’ to immigration. Thus the paper first examines recent trends in the immigration policies of Spain and Portugal. Here the circumstances in which a non-EU national is allowed to work legally are reviewed for both countries. Using interview responses from African workers, employers and key local informants in three Iberian regions (namely, Girona in northern Catalunya, Algarve in southern Portugal and the Península de Setúbal on the …

Keith Hogart, King’s College London
Cristóbal Mendoza, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Summary: The objective of this paper is to go beyond such statistical counts by examining the reasons why African immigrants are being employed in Spanish farming. 1 Underlying this concern is recognition of an essential difference between earlier mass immigration into north-central Europe and current inflows into southern Europe. Principally this difference emerges because immigration into southern Europe has occurred at a time of economic weakness and high unemployment. As Kindleberger (1967) indicates, an essential factor in economic growth in north-central Europe after 1945 was a substantial increment in …

Manuel Pastor, University of California – Santa Cruz
Enrico Marcelli, University of Massachusetts – Boston
Summary: This paper explores how these various “mismatches” determine labor market outcomes in Los Angeles County. The primary data source, from which we draw individual human capital and social network quality, is the Los Angeles Survey of Urban Inequality (LASUI). We combine this database with both a unique dataset on job location and composition and Census-based data. The combination allows us to create better measures of spatial mismatch than those used in most of the previous literature, including a variable capturing job growth in a localized labor …