Stephan Brunow (p), Katarzyna Miszczak, Holger Seibert, Aleksandra Wrona

Alessandra Faggian

In the past Germany had a substantial inflow of individuals from Poland. The majority of them are in employment; their share is even higher compared to the Germans. Thus, Polish employees substantially contribute to the German economy. In this paper we analyse the structure of Polish employees in more detail. We consider individual characteristics, their educational and vocational degrees, their occupations, their labour market performance such as unemployment, and their wage structure in comparison to the Germans. To identify potential selectivity in space, we also consider the Polish’s employee distribution with respect to agglomerated, urbanized and peripheral regions.
We aim to consider Polish data on employment and outmigration to better understand the economic impact of the outmigration for Poland. An outmigration leads to a reduction in unemployment but potential also to labour shortages.

Burak Asiliskender, Cigdem Varol (p), Meltem Karadag, Gul Berna Ozcan, Sinan Akyuz

Stephan Brunow

Over 5.6 million people left Syria since 2011 and sought safety in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and beyond. Turkey hosts 4.1 million refugees including 3.7 million Syrians and 400,000 asylum-seekers from other nationalities (UNHCR, 2020). Most of the Syrian immigrants (approximately 98%) do not live in refugee camps but in urban areas (DGMM, 2020). Therefore, majority of the immigrants undertake informal occupations. The limited availability of low paid jobs makes it also difficult for women to participate in the labour market. Although, women represent 46.2% of the Syrian immigrant population in Turkey, only 15% of them are involved in an income generating activity (ILO, 2020). Informality exposes Syrians to numerous risks and multiple types of vulnerabilities.
This study analyses the effects of Syrian immigrants on local labour markets in two Turkish cities and contributes to urban migration studies with its original conceptual framework and empirical findings. We take a frontier immigrant town historically linked to Syria (Gaziantep) and an inner-city with diverse immigration influx experience (Kayseri). Immigrants’ voluntary settlement in a number of secondary industrial centres, such as Gaziantep and Kayseri, across Anatolia shows stark geographical, economic and social differences and is a source of major urban transformation as well as stress. Gaziantep attracted immigration from neighbouring countries. In inner Anatolia, Kayseri presents a unique case as a frontline/inland town which has been a destination for the re-settlement of immigrants from diverse origins. However, none of these cities have history of having distinct diaspora communities. Hence, mass international migration is a new phenomenon.
Our main question to explore how Syrian migrants integrate in labour markets and how they interact with institutional processes in selected cities. We develop an original conceptual framework with perspective from sociology, geography, and urban studies. These investigate moral boundaries and contestations (Lamont, 1992; Sivis, 2021), precarious labour relations (Daly et al., 2020), inclusivity and informality of urban institutions (Kemeny and Cooke, 2017), spatially biased knowledge production (Schmiz, et al. 2020) and informality and entrepreneurship (Aliaga-Isla and Rialp, 2013).
The empirical evidence for the paper comes from semi-structured interviews with all adult individuals of selected 20 families, interactive group sessions and focus group discussions mixing diverse actors. These allowed the team members make wide-ranging observations and collect rich narratives on experiences and ideas regarding how migrants from different socio-economic backgrounds perceive life in their host cities and how policy actors respond to this evolving issue.

Jouke van Dijk (p), Stephan Brunow, Torben Dall Schmidt

Cigdem Varol

This paper contributes to the Brain Drain discussion with a territorial analysis with a focus on the North of Netherlands and a limited comparison with similar areas in Germany and Denmark. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the consequences of brain drain and, more broadly, brain circulation on social and territorial cohesion. The paper identifies the economic sectors and job categories most affected and explore how regional economies can adapt to a shrinking (highly skilled) labour force and still achieve a shift to a more productive knowledge-based economy. It will investigate the long-term consequences, the different drivers, and potential comprehensive solutions at all levels of governance to stop or even reverse brain drain. To shed light on this the focus of this study is on the North of the Netherlands covering the three northern provinces Groningen, Fryslân and Drenthe. This region borders the UNECSO World Heritage Wadden Sea, the largest tidal flat system in the world, with Outstanding Universal Nature Value, stretching along a coastal strip of about 500 kilometres from the North of the Netherlands via Germany up to Denmark. Due to data problems a detailed comparable analysis encompassing the whole area in the three countries is not well possible. Therefore, the findings for the North of the Netherlands will be compared with the coastal areas in Germany and Denmark.

Alessandra Faggian (p), Davide Piacentino, Martina Aronica, Debora Insolda

Jouke van Dijk

Doctoral graduates represent the pinnacle of education. While the importance of increasing their number has been openly recognised by the Italian government and there is a huge increase in the number of PhD scholarships publicly funded, doctoral graduates still struggle in the labour market to find a job adequate to their skills and competencies. It is against this backdrop that the role of migration becomes crucial. Exploiting Italian microdata at census level, this study aims exactly to investigate how human capital migration, occurred at different “times” of individual’s life and across different regions, may mitigate a potential education-job mismatch that is here measured in a multidimensional perspective by looking at overeducation, overskilling and satisfaction. Our findings reveal some positive effects of migration in reducing the mismatch. Moreover, the study highlights two relevant gaps. The first between domestic and foreign workers and the second between genders.
Keywords: Education-job mismatch; PhD; Human capital migration; Italian regions.
JEL classification: I21; J24; J61; R23