Addressing women's agency on international mobility

Highly-Skilled Migrants, Gender, and Well-Being in the Eindhoven Region. An Intersectional Analysis

The shortage of skilled labor and the global competition for highly qualified employees has challenged Dutch companies to develop strategies to attract Highly Skilled Migrants (HSMs). This paper presents a study exploring how well-being is experienced by HSMs living in the Eindhoven region, a critical Dutch Tech Hub. Our population includes highly skilled women and men who moved to Eindhoven for work or to follow their partner trajectory. By analyzing data according to these four groups, we detect significant differences among HSMs. Given the exploratory nature of this work, we use a qualitative method based on semi-structured interviews. Our findings show that gender plays a crucial role in experienced well-being for almost every dimension analyzed. Using an intersectional approach, we challenge previous models of well-being, and we detect different factors that influence the respondents’ well-being when intersecting with gender. Those factors are migratory status, the reason to migrate, parenthood, and origin (EU/non-EU). When all the factors intersect, participants’ well-being decreases in several areas: career, financial satisfaction, subjective well-being, and social relationships. Significant gender differences are also found in migration strategies. Finally, we contribute to debates about skilled migration and well-being by including an intersectional perspective.

Pathways to Permanence: Legal Status Transitions as a Key Mechanism in Skilled Migrant Selection and Settlement

Despite impassioned debates about immigration reform brewing in the U.S. government, researchers know remarkably little about how immigration policy shapes migration behavior. There is still much to learn about the composition of specific classes of admission, how long migrants stay in the United States, and the legal channels they follow to permanent residency or emigration. This paper takes a life course perspective on skilled migration to examine the micro-level processes and various pathways that lead to permanent settlement and emigration, and identifies legal status transitions as a key sorting mechanism in processes of immigrant selection. I find that migrants who successfully underwent a previous legal status transition were more likely to pursue permanent residence, but also saw a wider array of avenues to obtain a green card. The mismatch in some migrants' permanent settlement intentions and temporary legal status can lead to feelings of alienation and frustration in the immigration system and the U.S. labor market, driving some to emigrate or seek channels outside of the skilled migration program to procure a green card. The findings of this paper deepen our understanding of the processes that shape selection effects among immigrants and highlight the need for more robust and granular longitudinal data on legal status indicators.

"What kept me going was stubbornness”: Perspectives from Swedish early career women academics in geography

The rise of neoliberalism is creating inequalities for women as they balance their private lives and career trajectories. Geography as a middle sized discipline bridging the social and physical sciences offers insights into the ways neoliberal policies are felt by early career women (ECW). Using a life course model, this study presents the results of a workshop which sought to explore the ways in which women geographers, in Sweden, perceive and experience obstacles in their career advancement and which coping strategies they put in place to overcome those. The results show the blurring of the ECW ´s work and private lives. We find the experiences of ECW in Swedish geography departments are consistent with those of women in other countries. We conclude that ECW carry extra burdens in their career trajectories as academics due to unsupportive working environments, lack of mentorship, and an increasing pressure to produce measurable outputs and precarious employment. We argue that initiatives and programs aimed at retaining women in academia need to take on a broader perspective acknowledging the entanglement of women´s private and public spheres.

Psychological assessment among immigrant and Spanish women during the postpartum period in Spain

OBJECTIVE

to describe whether there were differences in sociodemographic, obstetric, perinatal and psychological variables between immigrant women and native-born women in Spain during the first 24 h after delivery.

BACKGROUND

The immediate postpartum period is a critical time when physical and psychological disorders are likely to occur. Immigrant women have, in general, poor perinatal and psychological results during this time.

METHODS

One hundred and three women at the Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital (Granada, Spain) were divided into two groups: 50 Spanish and 53 immigrants. The instruments used were the Life Orientation Test, the Stress Vulnerability Inventory, the Perceived Stress Scale and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Sociodemographic and obstetric data were obtained from the healthcare providers reports.

RESULTS

During the postpartum period, the immigrant women had higher mean scores on the following subscales: interpersonal sensitivity (F(1,102) = 4.06; p < 0.05); depression (F(1,102) = 7.24; p < 0.01); phobic anxiety (F(1,102) = 4.83; p < 0.05), paranoid ideation (F(1,102) = 7.20; p < 0.01); and psychoticism (F(1,102) = 4.04; p < 0.05). When considering age, education, profession, job situation, immigrant status of the partner and duration of time in Spain as covariates, differences between groups were significant on obsessive-compulsiveness (F(1,102) = 5.37; p < 0.05) and depression (F(1,102) = 6.89; p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Immigrant women are in need of more psychological and emotional support from their families, midwives and the rest of healthcare providers than are native Spaniards immediately after delivery.