National Institutions - International Migration: Labour Markets, Welfare States and Immigration Policy by Borang Frida

Author:Borang Frida [Frida, Borang]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786613073
Google: 6Rv-oAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 44331564
Publisher: ECPR Press
Published: 2019-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

EFFECTS OF LABOUR MARKET INSTITUTIONS ON LABOUR IMMIGRATION

Data and measurement

The independent variable in the following analyses is the same labour market index – including bargaining level, union density and active labour market policy – that was presented and used in the previous chapter. The dependent variable is inflows of foreign labour in relation to population size. As discussed in the previous chapter, there are problems with data availability for this variable, particularly for the earlier years. Running the regression with very unbalanced panels would be misleading since countries with a lot of missing data would not contribute equally to the results. There are data on inflows of foreign workers for nineteen countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Two of these – the Netherlands and Portugal – only have data from 1996 and 1995, respectively. Therefore most models are run with seventeen countries. A model with the full set of countries is included in appendix 3. The years covered are from 1985 to 2008.

Control variables are included for a number of political, economic and historical factors. Several scholars highlight the left-right divide as an important factor when it comes to immigration policymaking (see e.g. Breunig and Luedtke 2008; Hix and Noury 2007). Left-wing politicians are expected to be inherently pro-immigrant, as opposed to the anti-immigrant politicians of the right. There are different versions of this argument. One version is that left-wing parties see immigrants as potential core voters and are therefore more likely to perceive gains from an expanding immigrant population. Another, probably more common, version of the argument is more purely ideological: left-wing parties simply tend to favour groups that are disadvantaged in society, and immigrants constitute such a group (Breunig and Luedtke 2008). Moreover, the left is traditionally seen as more oriented towards international solidarity, while the – conservative – right is traditionally seen as more nationalist. The analysis therefore includes a measurement of cabinet composition that ranges from 1 – hegemony of right-wing (and centre) parties – to 5 – hegemony of social-democratic and other left-wing parties. This variable comes from the Comparative Political Data Set developed by Armingeon et al. (2010).

The radical right has, in many countries, been important in shaping and constraining immigration policy. Supposedly, there is both a direct and an indirect impact of radical right parties. The direct impact is possible when these parties actually have policymaking capacities. The indirect effect instead occurs when established parties readjust their agendas in reaction to a real or potential success of radical right parties. This way, even a short-term breakthrough could have important effects (Schain 2006). Regardless of whether the effect is direct or indirect, we should expect a negative effect of radical right parties on immigration. A control variable is therefore added, measuring the share of votes for radical right parties, where this share is more than 2 per cent. Radical right parties are defined

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