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The 2004/2007 EU enlargements rendered CEE citizens legally equal to EU labour market participants. However, CEE migrants still face 'racialisation' and segmentation in North-Western European labour markets. Similar processes might extend to EU-South migrants, giving rise to a division of labour, whereby CEE and EU-South migrants end up in poor-quality, low-pay jobs. We compare the labour market integration of recent intra-EU migrants (EU8, EU2, EU-South, EU-West/EEA) in the UK, Germany and Denmark. Using labour force, microcensus and register data, we model quantitative and qualitative integration through labour force participation and wages. We find no significant differences in labour force participation between nationals and migrants in the UK. Whilst in both Denmark and Germany, the labour force participation of EU-migrants is significantly lower. Notwithstanding differences in migration trends, labour markets and welfare regimes, we find evidence of a division of labour along occupational and industry lines − that translates into wage differences. EU-West/EEA migrants occupy better jobs (even outperforming nationals), followed by EU-South and CEE migrants. In Denmark and Germany, EU8 and EU2 migrants' wages are lower than those of nationals even after controlling for differences in occupations. These findings suggest that inequalities across the EU are reproduced rather than converging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Second-generation Turkish immigrants make up an increasingly important segment of European labour markets. These young adults are entering the prime working ages and forming families. However, we have only a limited understanding of the relationship between labour force participation and parenthood among second-generation Turkish women. Using unique data from the Integration of the European Second Generation survey (2007/08), we compared the labour force participation of second-generation Turkish women with their majority-group counterparts by motherhood status in four countries. We found evidence that motherhood gaps, with respect to labour force participation, were similar for majority and second-generation Turkish women in Germany and in Sweden; however, there may be larger gaps for second-generation mothers than for majority women in the Netherlands and France. Cross-national findings were consistent with the view that national normative and social policy contexts are relevant for the labour force participation of all women, regardless of migrant background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses various perspectives of immigration from receiving countries. Western Europe and the Gulf opted for a policy of admitting temporary rather than permanent migrants because they see manpower shortages as temporary. Western European governments assumed that the labor shortages of the 1950s and early 1960s would end when those born immediately after the war entered the labor force. Some sociologists and economists have suggested deeper structural explanations for the use of temporary foreign workers. One is that foreign workers can be a cushion in economies with fluctuations in employment. Another reason for admitting guest workers rather than permanent migrants is that the countries of Western Europe and the Gulf believed that they could thereby avoid becoming ethnically plural societies.

Since World War II, migrant labor has contributed significantly to Western Europe's economic growth. Initially, industries recruited and hired migrant workers to overcome labor shortages and downward demographic trends within the domestic work force. Since the recession of the mid-1970s, however, migrant labor has faced increasing job loss and restricted entry to many Western European countries. Throughout the postwar period, state immigration policy has supported industry, initially by assisting in the recruitment, and more recently, facilitating the repatriation of migrant workers. Economic and social disparities between developed core and underdeveloped peripheral countries are linked to international labor mobility. Certain sectors in the core benefit from the reserve labor force while emigration from peripheral countries partially contributes to these countries' economic problems. These issues are explored through a case study of the employment of North Africans in the French automobile industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]