And yet... they work! Migration and professional trajectories of Maghrebi immigrants in France (1960-1990)

For the October 25 session of the Axe Travail, emploi et profession, Sofia Aouani, post-doctoral fellow at the CSO, will present a paper entitled :

And yet... they work! Migration and professional trajectories of Maghrebi immigrants in France (1960-1990).

The session takes place from 10am to 12pm, both face-to-face at Sciences Po, on the Saint-Thomas campus, in room K008, and remotely on zoom. If you would like to attend, please contact Samia Ben.

Summary:

Since the 1970s, family reunification has gradually become the preferred reason for entering French territory, particularly for immigrant women from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. While, in the case of these women, social science studies have favored interpretations of a settlement scenario subordinate to men, this thesis exposes the social conditions of their entry and their maintenance on the labor market in France. Based on a statistical analysis of data from the Trajectoires et Origines survey (2008, Insee/Ined) and an ethnographic survey of women settled in France between the 1960s and 1990s, this research documents the effects of the restrictive and selective turn of migration policies on the gendered nature of migration projects defined in the countries of origin. While employment is central to the success of male trajectories, early professional integration after settling in France is perceived as a form of failure for women and their group of origin. Nevertheless, the thesis underlines the importance of understanding participation in the labor market longitudinally. Indeed, a majority of them hold or have held a job in France. By means of various statistical analyses, this research shows how the deterioration of the economic situation in the mid-1970s is reflected in the type of employment trajectories of Maghrebi immigrant women. From then on, their entry and retention in employment are dependent on family arrangements around work (paid and unpaid), unequal arrangements whose analysis reveals the emotional, material and statutory costs borne by women.

Finally, this research is attentive to the effects of variations in class and class fractions on the relationships between migration, gender and work. Beyond the socially differentiated resources that determine the conditions of access to the labor market, the thesis highlights how employment is at the center of the logic of symbolic fragmentation of the group. While the most well-endowed Maghreb immigrant women see active and continuous participation in the labor market as a vector of emancipation and proof of integration, those who have the fewest resources struggle to conform to this model of respectability and to extract themselves from (gendered) forms of racialization.