The Impact of Economic Change on Minorities and Migrants in Western Europe
Author(s)
Gordon, Ian
Abstract
Waves of animosity in Western Europe against immigrants from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Islamic countries made headlines during the mid-1990s. Earlier waves of migration involved people of similar ethnic and cultural background to residents of the host country. Shortly after WWII and again in the 1990s, the movement of Eastern Europeans to the west dominated immigration flows. However, for most of the post-war period migrants came from the eastern Mediterranean and from countries with colonial ties to Europe. The article summarized here links the marginalization of immigrants in Western Europe to two interacting factors – difference and changing economic conditions – that funneled them into particular economic niches. The cultural and ethnic qualities, and often darker skin, of these groups made them easy to distinguish and, therefore, easy to relegate to positions of economic, political and social inferiority. The desire of employers for cheaper labor encouraged this process. Continuing price advantage for this labor depended on its remaining in some respects ‘distinct’ from the host population.
