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Migration and Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Pieter Emmer
Pieter Emmer*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Leiden University and AIAS, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
*
E-mail: p.c.emmer@let.leidenuniv.nl
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Abstract

Over the past forty years our ideas about migration have changed dramatically. In fact, I know of hardly any other aspect of our daily lives that has seen such a complete reversal of appreciation. Until the 1970s, immigration was something to be proud of. Over the past few decades though, we seem to have forgotten that it is far better to live in a country that people are queuing to enter rather than one that they are desperate to leave. In fact, the modern migrant and the present-day smoker have something in common: both have become outcasts almost overnight. In the Netherlands, we even have coined a new term in order to express our dislike of the modern migrant: ‘fortune seeker’. That word seems somehow to make him or her different from, and less desirable than, the classic migrant of the past centuries.

Type
Focus: Labour Migration
Information
European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 499 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2008

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References

Notes and References

1. For an overview of the history of human migration see L. Page Moch (1992) Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe since 1650 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). W. Gunwu (ed.) (1997) Global History and Migrations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press). K. J. Bade (2000) Europa in Bewegung: Migrationen vom späten 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (München: Beck).Google Scholar
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3.European Commission (2006) Employment in Europe 2006 (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities), pp. 28–39.Google Scholar
4.Berkhout, E., Dustmann, C. and Emmer, P. (2007) ‘Mind the Gap’. International Database on Employment and Adaptable Labour (Amsterdam: SEO and Randstad), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar
5.European Commission (2006) Employment in Europe 2006 (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities), pp. 210–246.Google Scholar
6.Stalker, P. (2000) Workers without Frontiers. The Impact of Globalization on International Migration (Boulder, CO: Lynne Riener), p. 86 (Table 6.3), p. 108.Google Scholar
7. R. Euwals, J. Dagevos, M. Gijsberts and H. J. Roodenburg (2007) The labour market position of Turkish immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands; reason for migration, naturalisation and language proficiency. CPB Discussion paper no. 79. Also see: R. Koopmans (2002) Zachte heelmeesters….Een vergelijking van de resultaten van het Nederlands en Duitse integratiebeleid en wat de WRR daaruit niet concludeert. Migrantenstudies, 18(2), 87–92. A. Böcker and D. Thränhardt (2003) Is het Duitse integratiebeleid succesvoller en zo ja, waarom? Reactie op Koopmans. Migrantenstudies, 19(1), 33–44.Google Scholar
8.Lucassen, L. (2005) The Immigrant Threat. The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850 (Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press), pp. 130–134.Google Scholar