| dc.description.abstract | Southern European countries, the ‘new’ immigration countries of the EU (Baldwin-Edwards
and Arango, 1999; King and Black, 1997) have experienced alongside mass illegal immigration
either already-high unemployment [Spain] or increasing rates of unemployment [Greece and
Italy]. This has led to some speculation that immigrants are competing with native labour
forces, and thus creating unemployment. Furthermore, all southern Europe has undertaken
legalisation programmes, attempting to minimise the extent of illegal residence and work by
immigrants. There has been some limited research done on the effects of government policy,
but this has been largely confined to Italy. Greece – the country with the greatest per capita
problem of illegal immigration – has made no serious evaluation of its policies and is already
proceeding with its second legalisation.
The aim of this paper is to identify the structural location and role of immigration in the
southern European labour markets, since there is evidence to suggest that the characteristics
of immigration into southern Europe are distinct from the well-analysed patterns of the 1960s
into northern Europe (Baldwin-Edwards, 1999: 2). First, I summarise the existing knowledge on
immigrants and labour markets, with a focus on southern Europe. Then, the idea of a specific
southern European labour market is posited, and I outline the common characteristics of the
labour force, employment and the labour market itself along with nationally idiosyncratic
characteristics. Next, the limited comparative data on immigrant location in southern European
labour markets is presented. Finally, a brief evaluation is made of immigration into the
southern European labour markets, its functions and patterns of location. |
