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In this article, the authors take up the historical figure of Dr Betty Paërl, who has surprisingly turned up in very different kinds of specialised archives. The white mathematics professor was located in IHLIA LGBT+ Heritage, the largest queer heritage collection in Europe, as a notable SM sexpert and spokesperson on transgender politics, and also found during archival research into the anti-(neo)colonial struggles of Suriname against the Dutch. Upon closer inspection of the materials, the authors find the recurrent image/item of the whip that presses them to carefully think through how the archive of Dr Paërl casts light on a history that Katherine McKittrick calls being 'in the shadow of the whip'. The article aims to combine an analysis of these versions of the whip in different visual and discursive registers to detect the liberatory politics underlying her activisms. To do so, the authors develop the intersectional model of the kaleidoscope employed by Dutch Black, migrant and refugee (BMR) feminist theorists to grasp the shifting patterns of power that Paërl battled and embodied as an activist of the anticolonial struggle, for sex workers' rights, for kinky sex and for transgender people. This is all the more important in the historical study of transgender visual materials that most often arrive in archives via medical and police photography or pornographic materials. The historical researcher, the article argues, should be wary of (re)producing a static vision that would reduce transgender figures to sex and gender politics, or eclipse a vision of trans politics that dilates beyond sexuality.

AbstractObjectiveThis article examines the association between state‐level work–family resources and earnings disparities by gender and parenthood.BackgroundThe wage gap between childless men and women in the United States has narrowed, but the gap between mothers and fathers remains robust. Gendered division of labor and reduced labor force participation of women around childbirth have been raised as underlying causes. In the absence of national support, some states and migrant domestic workers have been filling the care gap, but it is unclear whether these factors are associated with the wage gap.MethodIndividual‐level data from the 2012 American Community Survey were merged with state‐level data collected for 2010. Multilevel linear regression models were used to explore variation in earnings across states, accounting for compositional differences and selection into the labor force.ResultsTemporary Disability Insurance, which enables new birth mothers to take paid leave, was robustly associated with narrower gaps between mothers and fathers. Unpaid private‐sector leave expansion and more intensive globalization of domestic work were associated with narrower gender wage gaps among parents with lower education. Provision of Head Start supplemental funding was associated with narrower wage gaps between mothers and fathers with higher education.ConclusionsAlthough mothers earned more in states with more work–family resources, the wage gap remained mostly unchanged because fathers similarly earned more in states with better work–family context.ImplicationsThe results reflect the fragmented and incomplete nature of work–family support in the United States and calls for more comprehensive intervention strategies to reduce the wage gap.

The hastily announced lockdown in March 2020 by the Indian government precipitated a wave of uncertainty and fear among urban residents living in auto-constructed settlements. In subsequent weeks, images poured in of people undertaking arduous journeys across hundreds of miles to try and get back to their native villages – a process that was dubbed the 'migrant crisis' by the mainstream media. This coinage, however, hides a number of differences in the positionality of city residents in terms of housing, employment, access to credit, political clientelism and family structure, factors which are themselves circumscribed by caste, religion, gender and ethnicity. Drawing on qualitative research in two separate field sites within Mumbai, this paper seeks to provide insight into the way choices on staying, leaving and returning to the city were made by various informal workers at the individual, family and community levels. While offering a chronological account of how the lockdown unfolded in the city, it makes three central observations. First, the status and relationship between landlord and tenant within the autoconstructed settlement was a key axis along which migratory decisions were negotiated. Second, the unforeseen gendered fallouts of punitive state action structured certain people's desperation to leave. Finally, the collective psychology of fear and safety worked more along the lines of caste, religion and ethnic community rather than friends and neighbors. Taken together, these insights aim to emphasize the need for more granular categories and new vocabularies to understand the evolving relationship between mobility, social structures and precarious forms of urban labor.

This study aims to understand how goals of activation and gender equality interact in labor market programs directed towards activating unemployed participants. The study draws on interviews with 28 social workers and managers at four Swedish municipally governed labor market programs typically targeted towards poor, unemployed individuals with little to no attachment to the labor market or social insurance system. Our findings show that activation goals are understood to be clear cut and a dominant logic within the labor market programs. The gender equality goals are understood as fuzzy and subordinate to the activation logic. Our theoretical analysis, based on neo-institutional theory, shows that gendered activation as a hybrid logic is created within the four programs as a means of handling the competing logics of gender equality and activation. Gendered activation may be reasonable on an individual level, where women in long-term unemployment can sustain a higher income through work and become financially independent. In the context of the gender segregated labor market, gendered activation reproduces gendered inequalities when an increasing interest for activation policy among welfare states overshadows claims of gender equality. Furthermore, our study exemplifies the systemic reproduction of racist discourse within social- and labour market policies. Within the logic of gendered activation, migrant women become singled out as specifically problematic for Swedish society to handle when unemployment is given gendered and cultural explanations. Through the logic of gendered activation, gender equality goals become no-matter-what employment rather than employment leading to equal outcomes.

We would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science (PGC2018-093506-B-100) for the financial support. ; In this article, we investigate the determinants of individuals' opinions concerning the economic impact of immigrants. Unlike most previous studies, we use a large sample of 61 countries (Joint WVS/EVS 2017–2020 dataset) that are either net receivers or net emitters of migrants. Using a multilevel model, we test the effect of individuals' characteristics and of several macroeconomic variables on the assessment of immigrants' impact on development. We highlight that natives' evaluation of the economic consequences of immigration is more influenced by age, trust, education, and income than by contextual variables such as growth, inflation, inequalities, income level, or number of immigrants in the country. Our results match with the hypothesis that immigrants are considered substitutes for low‐ and medium‐skilled workers in capital‐abundant countries. However, neither labour‐market nor welfare‐state considerations can be considered as the main drivers of the appraisals made about the economic impact of immigration. Our results tend to confirm the prediction that greater contact with immigrants reduces anti‐immigrant opinions, in particular for skilled people. In contrast, immigrant inflows lead low‐ and medium‐skilled people to make worse judgments concerning the economic consequences of immigration. All in all, our results validate the view that education comprises a major part of the cognitive assessment of the role played by immigrants in the economy, at least in high‐income countries. ; Spanish Government PGC2018-093506-B-100

PurposeSex work migration involves a huge number of females from Nigeria, and has attracted concerns within and across the country. To add to ongoing conversations about responsible migration, our review underscores the prevalence of sex work migration in Edo State, Nigeria, the drivers and interventions.Design/methodology/approachThe review adopted exhaustive search terms coined with the aid of "Boolean Operators". Search terms were entered into several search engines and databases to elicit peer-reviewed and grey literature within sex work migration and human trafficking for commercial sex. An output of 578 studies was recorded with 76 (43 academic papers and 33 grey literature) meeting the inclusion criteria.FindingsThe study acknowledged wide-spread prevalence of sex work migration involving Nigerian females who are largely from Edo State. It achieved a prioritization of the factors that drive sex work migration based on how frequent they were mentioned in reviewed literature: economic (64.4%), cultural (46%), educational (20%), globalization (14.5%) and political factors (13.2%). Several interventions were highlighted together with their several limitations which include funding, absence of grass-roots engagement, dearth of appropriate professionals, corruption, weak political will, among others. A combination of domestic and international interventions was encouraged, and social workers were found to be needful.Originality/valueOur systematic review is the first on this subject, as none was found throughout our search. It seeks to inform policy measures and programmes, as well as horizontal efforts poised to tackle the rising figures of sex work migrants and attendant consequences in Nigeria.

To fulfil obligations in international law State parties have to take the issue of human trafficking seriously. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides General Recommendations (GR) to member states on the interpretation of the Women's Convention. In 2018 the CEDAW Committee started to develop a GR on trafficking in women and girls in a process planned to conclude in 2020. The first stage towards this was through the publication of a Concept Note to serve as a basis for dialogue during the two-year international consultation period. The Concept Note is a vital link in a textual chain because it frames the policy problem and actively constructs its own 'documentary reality'. This article provides a critical analysis of the CEDAW Concept Note on the grounds that such analysis provides an understanding of its discursive construction of trafficking, migrant labour and sex work, by an institution responsible for international jurisprudence on human rights. Analysis of the Concept Note explores the documentary constructions including narratives that merge adult women with girls, the symbolism of exploitation, the silencing of scientific research, the elision of sex worker voices, and sex work as work. The analysis leads us to conclude that the General Recommendation should define what counts as 'exploitation', and 'forced labour', and address the growing international recognition of best evidence on the wider impact of sex work laws, in order that legal framing and constructions of sex trafficking are not erroneously used to curtail rights of sex workers.

The Covid-19 pandemic broke on a world whose grip on epistemic trust was already in disarray. The first months of the pandemic saw many governments publicly performing reliance on epidemiological and modelling expertise in order to signal that data would be the basis for justifying whatever population-level measures of control were judged necessary. But comprehensive data has not become available, and instead scientists, policymakers and the public find themselves in a situation where policy inputs determine the data available and vice versa. This essay asks how we can live with what Amoore has termed 'post-Cartesian doubt' in situations of existential risk, and what kind of approach to science and data can answer the moral and human demands of a situation such as the Covid-19 pandemic. I suggest that science and policy could be able to control the pandemic better by addressing the sources of uncertainty and missing data not as gaps in the information landscape, but as individuals who are likely to be members of less-visible and less powerful groups including low-wage workers, the elderly, migrants, prisoners and others. This would shift both data use and policy toward an ethics of care, an embodied approach which asks what people need and how they behave in relation to each other, rather than how to manage population-level behaviour. This approach, I argue, is more appropriate for pandemic response than a utilitarian calculation of how many people each country should expect to lose as a result of the disease.

In focus of this article are two selective parenting programs, both developed locally by Social Services and by a Women´s Shelter organisation in Sweden. Parents with a foreign background is the target group. Their needs are formulated in terms of `change values based on patriarchal beliefs in honour´. In the article the programs are described in relation to universal evidence-based parenting programs and a also a three-part dilemma of 1; offering preventative but also normative interventions to 2; selected target groups and 3; based on the idea that migrant parents have special needs due to cultural differences. The aim is to investigate in what ways the practices of conducting parenting programs for this target group could be framed as cultural imperialistic practices or democratic practices in social work. Cultural imperialism leads to oppression while democratic practices are emancipatory. A conclusion is that both practices are apparent and concurrent. Yet the dualism dismantles the risk of reproducing oppression of the selected target group. Another conclusion is that instead of defining parents with foreign backgrounds as culturally different the target group could be defined as a group with migration experience e. g. experience of leaving the home country and family and finding ways of resettlement in a receiving country. Selective parent programs are relevant but an alternative definition would promote democratic practice, where authorities and social workers meet the demands of the participating parents on their own terms, and with the goal, not to change 'unwished cultural differences' but to support empowerment. ; Epub 2019

Globally, international migrants are at elevated risk for experiencing loneliness due to separation from social networks in their countries of origin. In the United States, the political rhetoric has been particularly exclusionary against Latinx immigrants, exposing them to discrimination and fear of deportation. Such environments may result in heightened levels of social isolation, which may contribute to greater risk of poor mental and physical health outcomes. Latinx immigrants, however, may access social support in their destination communities that buffers against these negative outcomes. This study sought to examine how social support and loneliness shape Latinx immigrants' abilities to address the challenges related to migration. Multivariate linear regression analyses were conducted with survey data collected from Latinx immigrants in New York City (n=306). Results revealed that Latinx immigrants with greater social support and less feelings of loneliness were more resilient. Specifically, findings suggest that social support may partially protect against the negative impact of isolation on Latinx immigrants' capacity to thrive. Clinical social workers who work with immigrant groups may consider how migration during the life course affects immigrants' social supports and experiences of loneliness. Social work interventions that integrate strategies to increase social support may provide opportunities to address social isolation and other obstacles associated with migration. Such approaches acknowledge loneliness not only as a psychological symptom, but also as a consequence of unfavorable social environments towards immigrant populations. Future research may develop and assess culturally relevant strategies to promote social support and reduce loneliness among marginalized immigrants.

In 2015, the year following Pride's distribution, UK and international fans were able to participate in events inspired by the film which supported activist causes. This article is a reminiscence of events I participated in with Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), and an examination of the extent to which they relate to the events in Pride. Events discussed which were directly inspired by Pride include a restaging of a photo of LGSM in Hyde Park at the 1985 London Pride, a fundraising party similar to the Pits and Perverts benefit ball where Bronwen Lewis performed 'Bread and Roses', and LGSM and the miners leading the 2015 London Pride march. The events which related to moments in Pride became symbolic of the politics expressed within the film, but linked to contemporary issues. I will reflect on how LGSM brought the politics of their miners' strike activism into the events discussed, encouraging a younger generation, many of whom were not born when the miners' strike happened, to become involved in the activism that emerged out of Pride. Finally, I will end the piece by reflecting on LGSM's decision to wind down on activities not directly related to the miners' strike or its politics to support newly established groups supporting various causes, including migrant rights and struggling industrial workers. LGSM marked this with a farewell party, which was particularly moving, as the date coincided with the final day of work in Britain's last coal mine, making LGSM and Pride's messages of political unity all the more potent.

This article explores the employment and social security rights of third-country nationals guaranteed by a number of EU Directives which are specifically meant to promote and regulate labour migration to the EU. Some were agreed with a view to making the EU more attractive for labour migration from outside the EU. Others were meant to (partially) harmonise rights and/or procedures in order to create a level playing field between the Member States. More specifically, it examines the relevant provisions in the Blue Card Directive 2009/50, the Employers' Sanctions Directive 2009/52, the Single Permit Directive 2011/98, the Seasonal Workers Directive 2014/36, the Intra-corporate Transferees Directive 2014/66 and the Students and Researchers Directive 2016/801. The article emphasises that this set of EU labour migration Directives are the result of a sector-by-sector approach. The EU failed to adopt an overall and common EU labour migration policy and corresponding legal instruments. Even with regard to entitlement to equal treatment in terms of employment and social security rights, these EU instruments lack a common approach and give the Member States room to provide for exceptions. In addition, these Directives do not contain any provisions regarding the aggregation of periods of insurance, employment or residence. As a result, they offer additional protection for the social security rights of migrant persons, but they need to be complemented by other instruments such as multilateral or bilateral agreements with third countries, or even human rights instruments.

Since the crisis of 2007–2009, sovereignty, government and politics are on the agenda of social sciences and of international policy platforms, most recently in Davos. This is a departure from anti-statist, free-tradist visions of global market development in the 1980s and 1990s when sovereignty was simply associated with freedom of action of economic actors (most significantly, global corporations and banks) and governance simply referred to technical rules serving the ends of these actors posed in terms of dictates of the market. This paper points to societal dislocations (e.g. income discrepancies, unemployment) incumbent on global market development and to a time lag in which these made themselves felt in the developed and developing world. It argues that the developing world experienced the disillusionment with markets in the latter part of 1990s and early 2000s and sought solutions in effective governments, putting them in the service of reaping the benefits of global market expansion for individual regions. It meant non-liberal ways of governing markets, distancing from abstract formulations of individual rights, turning the 'rule of law' into living law deeply rooted in societal concerns not limited to commercial actors but including those of both blue-collar and white collar workers, of migrant populations, and women. At issue is an introduction of politics, of political agency and initiatives. The developed world rejected what is labeled as an 'autocratic turn'; and is lost for a solution to market woes, except for further measures to maximize gains by major commercial actors, as in the case of the Greek crisis.

This paper considers the impact of the most recent global economic crisis on immigration in the Czech Republic. Developments during this economically troubled period suggest that the "immigration-inexperienced" Czech Republic, which has attracted significant numbers of people seeking economic opportunities in the past decade for the first time, has repeated historical mistakes made by Western European countries during the 1970s oil crisis. Initially, promising economic growth at the beginning of the decade allowed the Czech government to ignore issues of immigration, including controlling inflow and immigrants' integration into the majority of society. The sudden reality of jobs disappearing in late 2008, irrespective of the fact that many employers in the economic sectors are dependent on foreign guest workers, caught the country unprepared. In an effort to level the unemployment rate and dampen societal unrest, the Czech Republic offered financial assistance to immigrants who opted to depart voluntarily, but officials overestimated the willingness of foreign labourers to return home, even if gainful work vanished. This paper is based on research conducted among participants of the government-assisted Voluntary Return Programme and a follow-up ethnographic study in the Vietnamese, Ukrainian and Mongolian communities in Prague. It can be shown that most immigrants decided to stay despite extreme declines in their living conditions. While the motivations of immigrants to leave or stay are multifaceted, this paper offers an alternative to the "pull-push" model that takes into consideration economic as well as cultural factors, which both impede and inhibit migrants from returning "home".

This paper discusses how widespread poverty and exclusion are in urban China during the period of transition from central planning to a market economy. Two poverty lines have been employed to measure poverty rates in urban areas: a diagnostic poverty line calculated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) experts and a benefit poverty line used in the Minimum Living Allowance Program of the Chinese government. Both sets of estimates show marked variations by province. According to the former standard, the poverty headcount of China in 1998 was estimated as 14.8 million, with a poverty rate of 4.7 percent. According to the later standard, the poverty headcount for 2007 is estimated as 22.7 million, amounting to a poverty rate of 3.9 percent. Poor people are generally not living in absolute poverty, as their basic needs in food, clothing and shelter can largely be met. However, they have low incomes and restricted consumption potential. Economic constraints also entail adverse consequences like poor health, poor education and limited social contacts. Two groups of people are here considered as the new poor: unemployed or laid-off workers and labor migrants. This means that China now has two new forms of urban poverty which are caused by different factors and are combined with different forms of deprivation. Therefore, policy programs designed to eradicate poverty in urban areas have to be tailored carefully to the poor people's special needs. Job creation and a comprehensive social protection system are here proposed as two effective instruments in the fight against urban poverty.