Receiving Country Investments and Acquisitions: How Migrants Negotiate the Adaptation to Their Destination

Abstract

This article looks at the adaptation patterns of EU migrants—Bulgarian, Romanian, Italian and Spanish—in European markets, and uses several interviews of overseas non-EU migrants in the UK and Germany. The interaction of migrants with the receiving context is being considered. Drawing on several interviews with actual migrants and recruitment agents collected in the GEMM (Growth, Equal Opportunities, Migration and Markets) project in four major immigrant societies (Germany, UK, Spain and Italy), this article focuses on the receiving country acquisitions that facilitate the adaptation of migrants along their journeys. EU migrants have very different adaptation strategies to non-EU migrants, and this article comments on the differences observed as well as on the differences between them according to skill levels. Migrant adaptation challenges are acknowledged and studied dynamically. Thus, this unique data brings forward a multi-layered picture of the migrant adaptation process in Europe.

The Lived Experiences of Migration: An Introduction

“…Fischer-Souan (2019), Demireva (2019) and Popivanov and Kovacheva (2019) illustrate that migrants rely heavily on informal channels of support for the first and most uncertain steps of their adaptation in the host countries. Our observations in this sense are in line with a dominant trend in the literature on the informal pathways chosen by specifically low-qualified migrants (Giulietti, Schluter, & Wahba, 2013;Maeva, 2017).…”

“…Both the contributions of Kovacheva, Popivanov, and Burcea (2019) and of Demireva (2019) highlight the important role that recruitment agencies play in facilitating the mobility process. Dominant in the discourse of private recruiters was the personal link they maintained with jobseekers and employers, as well as the psychological support they felt they provided to emigrants.…”

“…Moreover, there were also important first 'sieve' of candidates that guaranteed to host country employers the presence of workers who not only had the right skills but also exhibited high levels of commitment and work ethic. Migrants were sometimes ambivalent however of the positive role of recruitment agencies (see Demireva, 2019). Some felt that these institutions guarded the rights of employers rather than those of the migrants; and many preferred to directly approach employers once they became more established.…”

“…Both politicians and academics frequently focus on the linguistic competence of the migrant as the main factor facilitating their integration both in terms of labour market and cultural adaptation (see Cameron, 2011;Koopmans, 2015). In this thematic issue, Demireva (2019), Coletto and Fullin (2019) and Fischer-Souan (2019) speak of the important role of language for integration moderated by the skill levels of the migrants as well as the specificities in certain industries. Healthcare professionals reported the highest level of pre-migration host country language proficiency or language school enrolment immediately after arrival, because they were directly blocked from becoming registered practitioners without sufficient local linguistic capacity.…”

“…Ethnic niches were both feared and greatly appreciated. On the one hand, they could contribute to linguistic isolation from the mainstream (see Demireva, 2019), however, they also guaranteed some sense of comfort and protection especially for newly arriving immigrants (Demireva, 2019;. Thus, the evidence of the role of ethnic niches remains ambivalent.…”