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Managing Migration and Integration: Europe and the US, March 9, 2012Managing Migration and Integration: Europe and the USUC-Berkeley Room 420 Barrows Hall Opinion polls suggest that most Americans and Europeans believe that governments are doing a poor job selecting wanted newcomers, preventing the entry and stay of unwanted foreigners, and integrating settled immigrants and their children. Are they? This seminar focuses on the economic and social integration of immigrants who arrived as migrant workers. The European Commission has urged aging European societies to open doors wider to migrant workers in order to maintain labor forces and bolster the financing of pension plans. However, in Europe, low-skilled migrant workers and their children have low labor force participation rates, high unemployment rates, and low levels of education and training. There are significant differences by nationality in labor market integration, and the reasons will be explored in this session. The US is more successful at getting low-skilled migrants into jobs, but not very successful at ensuring that these jobs generate above poverty-level incomes and access to work-related benefits. Low-skilled migrants in European countries with regular jobs, on the other hand, generally have above poverty-level incomes and access to work-related benefits. The question is whether these Europe-US differences reflect a trade off between jobs and welfare, that is, do flexible labor markets that make it easier for immigrants to get jobs and harder for immigrants to access welfare benefits explain observed transatlantic differences? We are grateful to the UCB European Union Center of Excellence for their support of this conference. Friday, March 9, 2012
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