Social construction of skill: an analytical approach toward the question of skill in cross-border labour mobilities

Liu‐Farrer, Gracia; Yeoh, Brenda S. A.; Baas, Michiel

doi:10.1080/1369183x.2020.1731983

Cited by 67 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Although likely to be migrating for their own economic purposes, female migrant health workers are vulnerable to certain experiences that male migrants do not experience, including increasing risks to their own health [ 40 ]. In addition to such vulnerabilities, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Public Services International (PSI), there is a clear trend of undervaluing women’s work across professions [ 50 ].…”

Section: Gender and Health Worker Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hiding in plain sight: the absence of consideration of the gendered dimensions in ‘source’ country perspectives on health worker migration

et al. 2021

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Background Gender roles and relations affect both the drivers and experiences of health worker migration, yet policy responses rarely consider these gender dimensions. This lack of explicit attention from source country perspectives can lead to inadequate policy responses. Methods A Canadian-led research team partnered with co-investigators in the Philippines, South Africa, and India to examine the causes, consequences and policy responses to the international migration of health workers from these ‘source’ countries. Multiple-methods combined an initial documentary analysis, interviews and surveys with health workers and country-based stakeholders. We undertook an explicit gender-based analysis highlighting the gender-related influences and implications that emerged from the published literature and policy documents from the decade 2005 to 2015; in-depth interviews with 117 stakeholders; and surveys conducted with 3580 health workers. Results The documentary analysis of health worker emigration from South Africa, India and the Philippines reveal that gender can mediate access to and participation in health worker training, employment, and ultimately migration. Our analysis of survey data from nurses, physicians and other health workers in South Africa, India and the Philippines and interviews with policy stakeholders, however, reveals a curious absence of how gender might mediate health worker migration. Stereotypical views were evident amongst stakeholders; for example, in South Africa female health workers were described as “preferred” for “innate” personal characteristics and cultural reasons, and in India men are directed away from nursing roles particularly because they are considered only for women. The finding that inadequate remuneration was as a key migration driver amongst survey respondents in India and the Philippines, where nurses predominated in our sample, was not necessarily linked to underlying gender-based pay inequity. The documentary data suggest that migration may improve social status of female nurses, but it may also expose them to deskilling, as a result of the intersecting racism and sexism experienced in destination countries. Regardless of these underlying influences in migration decision-making, gender is rarely considered either as an important contextual influence or analytic category in the policy responses. Conclusion An explicit gender-based analysis of health worker emigration, which may help to emphasize important equity considerations, could offer useful insights for the health and social policy responses adopted by source countries.

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Section: Gender and Health Worker Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hiding in plain sight: the absence of consideration of the gendered dimensions in ‘source’ country perspectives on health worker migration

et al. 2021

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“…In recent literature, skills are disengaged from the inner capabilities of individuals. It is stressed that skills are not an intrinsic quality of a person, but they can change, according to personal aspirations, desires and expectations, or depending on the concrete socio-cultural and economic context or labour market, and the local or global crisis situations [43,44], as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown. Thus, the concepts of skills, skilled or highly skilled professionals is used with high elasticity, which confirms that it is subjected to space and time or socio-cultural needs, changing in cross-border labour mobilities [44].…”

Section: Skills Women In Mobilities and Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In my research I take as a point of departure the notion that 'skill' in cross-border labour mobility, and consequently the idea of the high-or low-skilled professionals on the move, is a "concept socially constructed by a constellation of actors in specific local, national, transnational and global contexts" [44] (p. 2240). It is not intrinsically correlated with educational level or occupational category.…”

Section: Skills Women In Mobilities and Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Returnee Migrant Women, COVID-19 and Sustainability in Spain

Martino

2021

Sustainability

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The COVID-19 pandemic has signified an historical change in human mobility. By transforming the patterns of people on the move, it has highlighted gender-based inequalities and women’s vulnerabilities. The link between COVID-19 and return migration shapes returnees’ readaptation process in their home countries, as returnees are embedded in a limbo between the pandemic’s pressure on the policy and socio-economic setting, on one hand, and their efforts for reintegration, on the other. Due to the pandemic, the gender-based imbalance has increased existing gender gaps both in migration and return, exacerbating women’s vulnerability. Thus, personal aspirations and professional expectations of highly educated women are caught in a system of socio-economic and geographical (im)mobility, which represents the principal outcome in their relocation and readaptation process. Based on a qualitative methodology through the analysis of ten life histories of highly educated returnee migrant women, this paper sheds light on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their migratory trajectories, providing a typology of them. Findings stress the necessity for more sustainable measures and resources for life–work balance and gender-sensitive policies, to promote a better integration process into the local labour market; to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on returnee women, and to prevent the proliferation of mental health problems among returnee women.

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“…Although none of these are universally true, they have become the mantras surrounding skilled migration. However, scholarship has also pointed to the vagaries of the definition of skill in skilled migration, pointing to how skills are social constructed and highlighting the who, what and how of skills as they play out in migration (Liu‐Farrer et al, 2020). Research has focused on the different actors and policies associated with migration (Boucher, 2020), the variable content of skills (Kofman & Raghuram, 2013) and the processes through which skills are acquired, assigned and eroded before, during and after migration (Nowicka, 2014; Walton‐Roberts, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interjecting the geographies of skills into international skilled migration research: Political economy and ethics for a renewed research agenda

Raghuram

2021

Population Space and Place

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There is now a large literature on skilled migration, which uses multiple definitions, concepts, theories and understandings of skilled migrants. However, this research has not adequately considered the geographies of skills—the spatial and temporal relations through which skills get meaning, are accrued and claimed and their outcomes and how these shape and are shaped by skilled mobilities and migration. This paper explores sites and networks as two interrelated elements of a geography of skills in order to highlight how they have prescribed, produced, prevailed and precluded who attains the skills to migrate. The paper goes on to outline how and why the geographies of skills and skilled migration matter in contemporary knowledge capitalism and the ethical issues they raise for a renewed research agenda on skilled migration. Crucially, it suggests that the spatio‐temporal configurations of skills raise not only empirical and analytical questions but also normative ones about the politics and ethics of skilling.

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Social construction of skill: an analytical approach toward the question of skill in cross-border labour mobilities

Cited by 67 publications

References 60 publications

Hiding in plain sight: the absence of consideration of the gendered dimensions in ‘source’ country perspectives on health worker migration

Hiding in plain sight: the absence of consideration of the gendered dimensions in ‘source’ country perspectives on health worker migration

Exploring Returnee Migrant Women, COVID-19 and Sustainability in Spain

Interjecting the geographies of skills into international skilled migration research: Political economy and ethics for a renewed research agenda

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