This book proposes an original approach to analyse the social and professional trajectories of migrant women with tertiary education. It focuses on the role of essentialism in stratifying labour markets based on gender, class and racialisation, and in limiting migrant women's employment opportunities. Based on multi-sited fieldwork conducted in France and Italy, the book highlights how essentialism influences the assessment of working capacities, stressing that skills are socially constructed and valued depending on who embodies them. It also emphasises that migrant women and labour market gatekeepers are not only passively accepting essentialism, but some are also resisting and eventually challenging this process. Deconstructing essentialism enables us to better understand the mechanisms that produce stratifications and aids in designing paths towards more equal access to employment.
Author(s): Anne-Iris Romens
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 154
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Tables
List of Schemes
1: Studying Stratifications and Essentialism in the Labour Market
References
2: “I Became a Migrant from Eastern Europe”. Essentialism and Migrant Women with Tertiary Education
2.1 Who the Skilled Are
2.2 The Literature on Migrant Women with Tertiary Education
2.3 A Conditioned Access to Stratified Labour Markets
2.4 Focusing on Essentialism
References
3: “First the Europeans, Then Maybe the Filipinas, Then you”. Perceiving Stratifications and Essentialism
3.1 Feeling Essentialised: Migrant Women’s Perspectives
Black Migrant Women and White Walls
The Otherness of Women from European Non-EU Countries
3.2 Recruiters’ and Social Workers’ Perspectives
Migrant Women’s Otherness in the French Context
Explicit Preferences in the Italian Context
3.3 Accessible Positions
Accessing Feminised and Racialised Sectors
A Useful Essentialised Otherness
3.4 The Variable Geometry of Stratifications
Diversified Employers
Recruiters’ Levers
Social Workers’ Orientation
References
4: “She Wanted me to Take a Dictation Exercise”. Essentialism and the Embodiment of Skills
4.1 Embodiment in the Recruitment and Selection Process
The Social Construction of Migrant Women’s Bodies
Subjectivity in the Recruitment and Selection Process
4.2 Assessing Embodied Skills
The Global Hierarchy of Foreign Education
Assessing Experience Gained Abroad
Embodied Language Skills
Assessing Soft Skills
4.3 Scrutinising Migrant Women’s Bodies
Floating Racialisation and Otherness
‘She Has to be Pretty’
Eroticisation of Migrant Women Bodies
References
5: “I can’t Limit my Life to your Prejudices”. Coping and Resistance Strategies
5.1 Coping, Resisting and Challenging Essentialism
Differentiating and Distancing
Resistance Thinking
Strategic Avoidance
Migrant Women’s Mobility Power
Confronting Verbally
Proving One’s Worth
Acting Collectively
5.2 Coping with Labour Market Stratifications
Accepting Stratifications
Circumventing Recruiters’ Essentialism
Attempting to Remove Barriers
Surfing Stratifications
References
6: “Maybe This Will Be Useful for the Future”. Expanding Research on Essentialism
References
Index
