The use of ethnicity in recruiting domestic labour

Transcription

1 The use of ethnicity in recruiting domestic labour A case study of French placement agencies in the care sector Annalisa Lendaro Post-doc fellow ENAP Montreal (CA) Associated Researcher - Laboratoire d Économie et Sociologie du Travail, Aix- Marseille University (France) annalisa.lendaro@univ-amu.fr

2 Starting point and research questions High concentration of immigrant workers in low-skill industries (Piore 1979, Waldinger & Lichter ). Discrimination processes and stereotypes: association between ethnic origins & individual abilities, capacities, productivity etc. (Pager & Shepherd 2008). The French paradox: discriminatory selection practices, in spite of a strong Republican norm of equal opportunity. Our questions : 1. What organizational processes favour high concentrations of immigrant women in this sector? 2. How do different kinds of gatekeepers contribute to perpetuating ethnic stereotypes in their job placements? 3. To what extent and how do they relegate immigrant women to jobs with poor career opportunities?

3 The French market for domestic workers A focus on the intermediary organizations (in spite of the dominant individual employer model ) The Borloo Law (2005) : the institutionalization of a cash for care welfare system that promoted the development of the intermediary domestic service market. Three kinds of gatekeepers to access to domestic workplaces 1. Agencies specialized in domestic services; Social gatekeepers; Public job centres.

4 Public agents Job seekers Jobs Active Fragile Domestic service providers associations companies Job seekers Domestic services for Working customers Fragile customers Occupational integration services Training

5 The sociology of conventions - 1 How actors make arrangements among each other, and in relation to their organizational environment? Conventions: central principles of social relations in work organizations. They provide common perspective for coordinating actions, to reduce uncertainty. Boltanski and Thévenot (Princeton University Press, 2006) distinguish between different worlds, each characterized by its own convention that coordinates action and defines individual worth in the recruiting process.

6 The sociology of conventions - 2 INDUSTRIAL world - Methodical actions (plans, schedules etc.) - Worth = efficiency and productiveness - Positive relationships = organized and standardized. CIVIC world - Collective interest & social peace - Principle of equal opportunities counts. MARKET world - Price and competition logics - Soft skills' in the exchange with clients count - Employers adopt the client point of view in recruiting. DOMESTIC world - Model of family relations - Traditional gender relations - Employment relationship based on affection & interpersonal feelings. Tensions between worlds = compromises between recruitment principles. How compromises affect the relevance of ethnic criteria?

7 Research design and methodology Multiple case study Three organizations in Marseille (France): selected to encompass the most common types of intermediary gatekeepers Data collection: , interviews and observations Data analysis in three steps: 1) Reconstruction of the organizational environment of the gatekeeper; 2) Analysis of conventions & compromises underlying decision-making by gatekeepers; 3) Relating the use of ethnic categories to the job placement conventions.

8 Case study 1: National Job Agency Key actor on the labour market Story: services for job seekers are highly standardised. Assessment of candidates qualities and job placement based on bureaucratic procedures and official nomenclature. Conventions: INDUSTRIAL (performance & standardization) + CIVIC (equal opportunities, only legal categories). Compromise: INDUSTRIAL - civic Use of ethnicity: Insignificance of ethnic categories in the industrial world = substituted with legal ones.

9 Case study 2: CarePro, a large domestic service provider Story: Intermediary between clients & wage earners (CarePro is their legal employer) % of the workforce is of foreign origins. Potential obstacles (ex. Insufficient language skills) are reduced by training. Foreign qualifications are not recognized. Conventions: Suitability of immigrants in the MARKET world (cheap & available labour; no competition from nonimmigrants); cultural obstacles in the DOMESTIC world need to be neutralised through training. Compromise: MARKET DOMESTIC Use of ethnicity: Ethnic categories enable employers to anticipate potential trouble in the domestic world of the clients.

10 Case 3: Integra, a non-profit occupational integration association Story: created to integrate hard-to-place job seekers; Integra employs large numbers of immigrant workers (mostly female with young children). Training & administrative support for temporary foreign workers. Conventions: Work integration of disadvantaged people (CIVIC discourse & mission) + MARKET logic The costumers also have to be satisfied (cit.) Compromise: CIVIC - MARKET Use of ethnicity: ethnic categories + gender categories (immigrant mothers) to select the most suitable group for domestic work (cheap, fragile etc.).

11

12 Conclusions & Implications Civic convention (ex. Integra): ethnic categories are relevant to help identify the disadvantages job seekers. Industrial convention (ex. NJA): no official use or relevance. Market and Domestic conventions: systematic use of ethnic categories: to identify cheap and readily available labour (1) or traditional suitable workforce because female & less ambitious (2). IMPLICATIONS : foreign certificates are not recognized = no career opportunities = overrepresentation of immigrant women in unattractive sectors & jobs. Need of policy-makers intervention.