Deconstructing Essentialism: Migrant Women in Stratified Labour Markets - Hardcover

by Anne-Iris Romens (Author)

The book is the first publication that focuses on essentialism to analyse the trajectories of migrant women with tertiary education and study their access to jobs.Although holding tertiary education should facilitate access to rewarding positions, returns on education for migrant women are reduced within European labour markets. Regardless of their educational background, they primarily find employment in jobs with low social recognition. Scholars have explored the impact of migration policies, of low recognition of titles and skills gained abroad, and of networks in confining migrant women at the bottom of the employment structure. However, the literature gives little attention to the influence that essentialism has on limiting access to jobs. By analysing the challenges faced by migrant women with tertiary education, the book highlights how access to resources and employment is gendered, classed, and racialised and how essentialist processes influence it. Understanding these mechanisms will contribute to reproducing stratifications aids in designing paths towards more equal access to employment.

Back Jacket

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 Biography

Anne-Iris Romens is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy. Her research interests regard migration, care, and labour processes which she analyses from an intersectional perspective.