How policies select immigrants: The role of the recognition of foreign qualifications

Authors

  • Monica Andriescu Lancaster University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59670/ml.v15i4.3

Keywords:

recognition of foreign qualifications, intra-EU mobility, highly skilled immigrants, labour shortages, selection mechanisms

Abstract

Although immigrants’ settlement and integration into the labour market are subject to a number of regulations, previous research has primarily investigated the role of admission policies in selecting immigrants. There are other policies, however – such as the recognition of foreign qualifications – that fulfil a similar role, although these policies are largely overlooked in the literature. This study explores the way these policies select among wanted and unwanted highly skilled immigrants, subsequently facilitating or hindering their integration into jobs matched to their level and type of qualifications. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with highly skilled Romanian immigrants with various professional qualifications and focuses on their experiences with recognition processes in Germany over the last decade, highlighting the procedures’ effects on individuals’ upward or downward employment trajectories.

Author Biography

Monica Andriescu, Lancaster University

Monica Andriescu is a Research Associate at Lancaster University. She successfully defended her doctoral dissertation at the Humboldt University Berlin in 2017 with a thesis that evaluated the effects of labour market, skills and immigration policies on the employment trajectories of highly skilled EU immigrants in several countries in the European Union (Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). Monica has also collaborated with the University of Oxford and the University of California (Santa Barbara) on a research project about the local integration of recent refugees in Germany and the United Kingdom, and with the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca on a project that investigated the determinants of immigrants’ political behaviour in the European Union. Monica currently researches adult skills and employment policies in the European Union and at the Member State level, including the transferability, validation and recognition of qualifications and skills acquired abroad. She published several articles in peer-reviewed journals on immigration, ethnic relations and identity politics.

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Published

2018-09-30

How to Cite

Andriescu, M. (2018). How policies select immigrants: The role of the recognition of foreign qualifications. Migration Letters, 15(4), 461–475. https://doi.org/10.59670/ml.v15i4.3

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 4 (2018): Special Issue: Highly Skilled or Highly Wanted? Conceptualizations, Designs and Implementations of High-skilled Migration Policies

Section

Special Dossier

License

CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0