Migrants with insecure legal status and access to work: the role of ethnic solidarity networks

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-10-2018-0203
• Published date: 20 August 2019
• Date: 20 August 2019
• Pages: 1047-1062
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour,Employment law
• Author: Janroj Yilmaz Keles,Eugenia Markova,Rebwar Fatah

Migrants with insecure legal

status and access to work: the

role of ethnic solidarity networks

Janroj Yilmaz Keles

Middlesex University, London, UK

Eugenia Markova

Brighton Business School, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK, and

Rebwar Fatah

MECS, London, UK

Abstract

Purpose –Building upon previous studies on the factors shaping undocumented migrants’experiences on

the host labour markets, the purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical understanding of labourmarket

participation and ethnic solidarity networks, accounting for the sending context of war and political

persecution, and the trajectory to irregularity.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper extends the understanding of the role of ethnic solidarity

networks on the labour market participation of migrants with insecure legal status. It draws on data from a

questionnaire survey of 178 Iraqi-Kurdish migrants with insecure legal status, four focus groups and ten

expert interviews. Working conditions and sectors of employment are explored alongside strategies for

accessing work and the role of ethnic solidarity networks.

Findings –The analysis of the data provides strong support for the theoretical expectations outlined above,

assuming that the conflict-generated diaspora communities display a very distinct solidarity among its

members, embedded in a shared history of conflict, persecution and identity struggles. Ethnic solidarity is put

to the ultimate test in times of intensified enforcement of employment and immigration law. It stretches to

accommodate the risks that employers take to provide work to their insecure co-ethnics, facing the tangible

threat of raids, business closure, defamation and colossal fines, to mention but a few. In this context, the

authors have defined “stretched solidarity”as a form of support and resource sharing among certain

conflict-generated ethnic groups, embedded not only within a shared history of displacement, collective

memory and trauma, and shared culture, language, loyalties, obligations and experiences but also in the

“reception context”, which may limit ethnic solidarity through restrictive immigration controls.

Research limitations/implications –The authorsrecognise the limits ofthe paper, which are that analysis

is mainlybased on experiences of themajority of whom were youngand male migrants with insecuremigration

legal status, ratherthan employers.

Social implications –This paper has identified the social phenomenon of “stretched solidarity”and has set

out a model for understanding its embeddedness within conflict-generated diasporic networks. By drawing

together research insights and data on Iraqi-Kurdish migrants with insecure legal status, it addressed the

central research question how “unauthorised”migrants get access to the segmented labour market at a time

of increased in-border controls in the UK.

Originality/value –The paper contributes towards an enhanced understanding of the complex

phenomenon of “stretched solidarity”and its role in migrants’gaining access to and maintaining employment

in the host labour market. The notion of “stretched solidarity”developed here provides a platform for

identifying a number of emerging areas for further empirical study and policy thinking. This requires

advanced research not only into the processes of migrants’access to the host labour market but also into the

role of ethnic networks, resources and structures that enable migrants in precarious situations to survive.

Keywords Conflict and migration, Displacement and migration, Ethnic networks,

Labour market participation, Migrants with insecure legal status, Stretched solidarity

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

This paper explores the complexities of ethnic solidarity and ethnic capital in enabling

participation on labour markets for migrants with insecure legal status in the UK. Drawing

on research with “Iraqi”-Kurdish migrants in precarious situations, this paper aims to

Received 15 November 2018

Revised 12 April 2019

Accepted 21 June 2019

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

Migrants

with insecure

legal status

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 41 No. 7, 2022

pp. 1047-1062

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-10-2018-0203

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contribute a nuanced concept of stretched solidarities to the theoretical debate on labour

market segmentation, migration and ethnic solidarity networks.

It focuses on two main aspects of work in relation to “unauthorised”migrants. First, the

paper concentrates on “unauthorised”migrants’working lives in terms of sectors of

employment, jobs, working conditions and pay. Second, it examines the coping strategies

that they develop and adopt for accessing work and managing work and life against the

tangible uncertainties of being detected, arrested and deported, which brings to the fore the

importance of ethnic solidarity, the associated social and ethnic capital and the “push”

factors for migration that render return unfeasible.

Building upon previous studies on the factors shaping undocumented migrants’

experiences on the host labour markets (Bloch, 2013; Ryan et al., 2008; Ahmad, 2008), we

expand the theoretical understanding of labour market participation and ethnic solidarity

networks, accounting for the sending context of war and political persecution and the

trajectory to irregularity. While there is substantial academic and policy interest in migrant

employment in the UK (Wills et al., 2009; Markova et al., 2016), the working lives of migrants

with insecure legal status and the role of “ethnic solidarity”(Portes and Sensenbrenner,

1993; Portes, 1995; Ahmad, 2008; Bloch, 2013) have received less attention.

This paper contributes to the migrant employment literature by examining the

intersections between ethnic solidarity as a form of ethnic and social capital among

conflict-generated diaspora communities settled in the UK and the increased in-border

controls in relation to access to work for migrants with insecure legal status.

This paper is organised as follows. First, the literature on irregular migrant workers is

reviewed, especially the conceptualisation of the role of altruism and ethnic solidarity

as outcomes of ethnic and social capital. Second, the methodology and data collection

methods are outlined. Third, the empirical findings are discussed to explain the strategies

adopted by irregular migrants to access work, the experiences and challenges they face, and

the role of ethnic solidarity networks in the process.

The theoretical contribution of the paper

Social networks, ethnic capital and the acts of solidarity

There has been a growing body of the literature on undocumented migrants and their

vulnerable position in the labour market ( Jones et al., 2006; Koser, 2008; Ahmad, 2008;

McKay et al. 2011; Bloch et al., 2011; Palenga‐Möllenbeck, 2013; Bloch, Kumarapppan and

McKay, 2014; Bloch, Sigona and Zetter, 2014). The reasons and motives for migration, the

“push”factors (Bloch, 2013), often impact on migrants’degree of reliance on ethnic networks

and their experiences of acts of solidarity by fellow community members. In certain

geopolitical contexts, particularly the Middle East, the moving costs accrued are equalised

with the costs to smugglers (Ahmad, 2008). More recent clandestine journeys from

the Kurdish part of Iraq to the UK may range from $6,000 to $9,000, a price that accounts for

the complexities of the trips and the associated risks of detection. The existing studies

indicate that migrants smuggled in the country are more likely to rely on co-ethnic networks

to find jobs in ethnic niches in the “old”migrant economy because of the impossibility to

access employment agencies or other legal recruitment institutions (Edwards et al., 2016).

Social networks are key in the conceptual framework of social capital of Bourdieu (1986)

and Coleman(1988) and Granovetter (1974),defined as sets of social relationships embeddedin

networks which consist of resources, thegroup’ssharedvalues,“impersonal connections and

positionalrelations”(Bottero and Crossley,2011, p. 8). The concept of socialnetworks has been

used in migrationstudies to understand the various stages of themigration process including

the pre-migration, settlement, integration, community relationships and access to the labour

market as well as trans-migrants’relationships with their homeland (Waldinger and Lichter,

2003; Ryan et al., 2008; Bloch and McKay, 2015; D’Angelo et al., 2015; Molina et al.,2015;

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