Strong market, weak state: the case of recent foreign immigration in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Peixoto, João
• Data de Publicação: 2002
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/26564
• topic: Labour Migration; Migration Policies; Higly Skilled Migration; Portugal

This paper examines the relationship between labour migration and national migration policies, taking the case of recent foreign immigration to Portugal. Two distinct types of flow are observed. Firstly, the low-skilled workers who have come into the Portuguese labour market since the late 1970s. These were initially mostly Africans and more recently Eastern Europeans. The difficulties of controlling these flows led to an inflection of Portuguese migration policy since the early 1990s, reflected in two regularisations of illegal immigrants and, recently, in the establishment of temporary labour permits. Secondly, the highly skilled segment of the labour force will be studied. Here we observe independent flows, coming mainly from Brazil, and others occurring within the framework of the internal labour markets of multinational corporations. These flows were hardly controlled, particularly as regards the recognition of foreign qualifications. The conclusion points to the relative strength of labour markets, at both national and organisational level, in originating flows, and to the relative weakness of states in regulating them. A first justification for this discrepancy is the increase of regulation problems resulting from globalisation. A second justification is the action of social networks: in fact, labour markets do not act strictly by themselves, but are activated by powerful social ties.