Rethinking labour migration: Covid-19, essential work, and systemic resilience.
Bridget Anderson1, Friedrich Poeschel2, Martin Ruhs2,3
1Migration Mobilities Bristol, University of Bristol, 11 Priory Road, Bristol, BS8 1TU UK.
Comparative Migration Studies
|October 5, 2021
Summary
Migrant workers are essential to critical services like healthcare and food supply. Policies must account for their crucial role in systemic resilience during crises, shifting focus to transnational systems.
Area of Science:
- Sociology
- Public Policy
- Migration Studies
Background:
- Migrant workers formed a significant portion of essential workforces during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in health, social care, and food supply chains.
- Existing research and policy frameworks often overlook the impact of migrant workers on the systemic resilience of essential services during crises.
- The contributions of migrant workers to maintaining basic services are frequently underestimated in policy design and academic analysis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the critical role of migrant workers in maintaining essential services during crises like the Covid-19 pandemic.
- To advocate for the integration of migrant workers' contributions into labor migration policies and systemic resilience assessments.
- To propose a shift in research focus from national contexts to transnational systems of production and service provision.
Main Methods:
- Conceptualizing systemic resilience by drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives.
- Analyzing the existing literature on migrant employment in essential services and policy frameworks.
- Developing a framework for comparative research on migrant workers and systemic resilience.
Main Results:
- Migrant workers are integral to the functioning of essential services, yet their impact on systemic resilience is under-researched and overlooked in policy.
- Current policies and research often fail to consider the broader systemic implications of migrant labor in essential sectors.
- A transnational perspective is necessary to fully understand the role of migrant workers in ensuring service continuity during crises.
Conclusions:
- Labor migration policies and systemic resilience strategies must explicitly incorporate the contributions of migrant workers.
- Future research should adopt a comparative, transnational approach to investigate how migrant workers influence systemic resilience across different contexts.
- Shifting the analytical lens to transnational systems will provide a more comprehensive understanding of migrant labor's impact on essential services and crisis preparedness.
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