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The present study examines the five principles of the life course perspective—life span development, time and place, agency, timing, and linked lives—and their interplay on the experiences of 26 emerging adults (11 males and 15 females) during their transition from college completion into the STEM labor force in Spain. Findings derived from the in-depth interviews focus on the multilevel challenges these young people face and the set of strategies they develop to overcome them. From a gender perspective, the challenges reveal the structural inequalities (many associated with existing gender stereotypes) that women encounter throughout their educational and professional trajectory. The research also identifies how these women and men display agentic features (at a micro-level) and mobilize different types of networks (at a meso-level) to overcome this adverse structural context, especially, during the economic post-crisis in Spain.

The use of mixed methods to deal with the complexity of remittance motivations is still infrequent. This paper uses statistical and qualitative data and provides evidence on the conceptual framework for understanding remittance behaviour proposed by the scholar Jorgen Carling. Carling's ‘remittance scripts’ understand remittances as multifaceted transactions and enrich the assessment of the relationship between remittances and development at origin. We use quantitative and qualitative data, both extracted from an ethnosurvey conducted in Spain, to shed light on the situation of transnational Bolivian immigrants after the economic crisis of 2008. We argue that the transactions are best represented by the necessity to provide for the recipients' basic needs. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Over the last 25 years, Spain has experienced a significant increase of Latin American immigrants, which has raised questions about their children’s adaptation process. Yet, there is little evidence on the factors that explain school success or failure among this group. This paper aims to fill this gap by using data from the Longitudinal Study of the Second Generation in Spain (ILSEG is its Spanish acronym). The findings show that the children of Latin American immigrants are more likely to attain lower educational levels than the children of Spanish natives. However, concentrating on the national origin variable risks obscuring some underlying adaptive processes—associated with generational age cohorts—involved in differential educational outcomes among immigrant children. The data analyzed show that Latin American immigrant children born in Spain are likely to attain the same educational levels as their native Spanish peers. This finding highlights the importance of being raised in the host country in easing adaptation to the new society and the school system. The paper concludes with some policy suggestions in the field of education. Instead of treating all child migrants uniformly, public policies should address the specific needs of the target groups, emphasizing later arrivals.

Altres ajuts: Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2018-2019) ; Staff de "Congress of the City University of New York (2019-20, USA)" With the passing of Royal Decree-Law 16/2012, Spain's national health system switched from a model defined by universal and free health care principles, to a private insurance system that excluded large population groups. Based on a qualitative research design, this paper examines the media treatment of undocumented immigrants' prerogatives to public health care in Spain (2012-2018). The analysis of 234 articles, drawn from three major Spanish newspapers, reveals three frames that underscore the media's "rhetorics of inclusion," which argue for the extension of free medical services to irregular immigrantsa topic traditionally underestimated by the literature. The moralist frame, supported by social justice arguments, is found in tandem with the cost-benefit frame that advocates for immigrants' health care access as a means for containing medical expenses. The overall predominance of the legalist frame largely relies on arguments that reflect a Spanish political culture rooted in the universality of health rights.

The economic crisis in the Spanish context has played a significant role in explaining the dynamics of return migration in recent years. Based on a qualitative approach, we argue that macro-structural elements in the receiving context operate only as triggers in the decision to return. Instead, factors linked to the micro-meso levels and their interplay with the structural context illuminate key variables that allow us to identify different meanings and strategies to plan the return. The interaction of these determinants with the economic crisis leads to three types of circumstances. For some migrants, the return is a premature closure of the migratory project. For others, the return disrupts their migratory project, while for the third profile, this decision is unreachable due to economic limitations. Beyond the empirical contribution, the paper reveals the need to include the interplay of different levels of analysis (macro-meso and micro dimensions) taking into account the temporal dimension of the migratory process (stages before, during, and after migration), rarely present in the studies of return patterns.

In an era where even citizenship is not a guarantee of access to the welfare state, can non-citizens gain access to social protection? Using health care as a lens, and the United States and Spain as cases, we find that non-citizens do have access to social protection via what we call ‘grey zones’, namely points of disagreement between national and local governments that create opportunities for non-citizens. Grey zones are possible due to processes that are often seen as disenfranchising: the denationalisation of policy and the disaggregation of citizenship. In addition, they tend to open up regardless of the nature or intent of national reforms. That said, we find significant variation in the extent to which subnational governments take advantage of them. While differences are somewhat explained by partisanship, significant outliers warrant further investigation.

Based on a qualitative approach (30 biographical interviews and 30 life satisfaction charts), this paper aims to frame the intra-EU skilled migration patterns into the life course perspective. In addressing this broad aim, the paper focuses on reconstructing the training, labour and migratory trajectories of skilled Romanians with tertiary education acquired in Romania, with previous labour trajectories in Romania, working in Barcelona’s IT, financial and business sectors. By shaping these life trajectories from a retrospective perspective, the paper offers key elements in explaining successful training, labour and migratory careers taking into account the following principles: agency; time and space; life-span development, and the principle of linked lives.

On the basis of data collected by the RETTRANS survey (2011–2012) on Bolivian migrants living in Spain, this article aims to identify the influence of the 2008 economic crisis on the determinants marking the migrants’ return intention. In this regard, there is a need to incorporate the concept of double embeddedness based on migrants’ social networks (meso level), the way migration is imbricated in persons’ lives (micro level); and how, at a macro level, economic and social transformations of different contexts affect these decisions. The article highlights that unexpected changes in living conditions trigger a reconfiguration of these mixed factors that condition return intentions. Resumen En base a los datos procedentes de la encuesta RETTRANS (2011–2012) sobre los migrantes bolivianos residentes en Espana, este articulo analiza la influencia del impacto de la crisis economica en los factores que explican la intencion de retorno. En este sentido, se discute la necesidad de incorporar el concepto de “doble imbricacion”, basado en las redes sociales de los migrantes (nivel meso), la forma en la que la migracion se imbrica en las vidas de las personas (nivel micro); y como afectan, a nivel macro-estructural, las transformaciones economicas y sociales de los contextos estas decisiones.

The academic interest on skilled migration patterns has increased at the same time as the flows of skilled migrants around the world. Despite this tendency, there is still a lack of knowledge regarding the migratory projects of particular ethnic communities or in specific receiving contexts. The current paper examines the migratory experiences of Romanian professionals and the extent to which the incorporation into the Spanish labor market represents a turning point or a transition in their overall life trajectory. Based on a qualitative design, the paper highlights how some profiles are more sensitive to sending and receiving contexts (structural elements), display strategies through mobilization of universities or social networks and shape disrupted trajectories. Others, respond to globalized dynamics, mobilize corporations and finally develop smooth labor transitions. The main elements explaining these patterns are tackled and explained in three profiles of professionals: those who arrive to Sp...

El articulo ofrece un analisis de los programas y politicas de retorno en cuatro (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, y Peru), en base a tres dimensiones: los perfiles de retornados a los que se orientan, el vinculo entre migracion de retorno y desarrollo y, en tercer lugar, la perspectiva transnacional. Se trata de paises que muestran un incipiente interes en impulsar politicas de retorno; al tiempo que representan un interesante caso de estudio, ya que han sido expulsores de migracion y, actualmente, como consecuencia de la crisis economica en paises como Espana, asisten al retorno de muchos de sus ciudadanos. El articulo destaca que si bien a nivel de aprobacion de leyes se ha asistido, en terminos generales, a avances significativos; en la practica, la mayoria de las politicas carecen de una estrategia concreta que incluya la diversidad de perfiles de retornados y reducen al microemprendimiento el potencial de la migracion de retorno para el desarrollo local. Palabras-clave: politicas de retorno, programas de retorno, migracion andina, Espana

This paper studies the upward occupational mobility trajectories of immigrant women performing unskilled work as a first job in Spain. The goals of the research are to go beyond the debate that focuses on the structural elements that condition their labour trajectories in Spain and to include both personal factors and the way in which these women use their agency in order to shape their labour trajectories. We have opted for a mixed-method approach, using data from the National Immigrant Survey ENI-2007, combined with 42 socio-biographical interviews with immigrant women from Latin America living in the metropolitan areas of Barcelona and Madrid.

The classical approaches on skilled migration focus on the negative effects of the phenomenon through concepts such as brain drain. Geopolitical, economic, social and technological changes occurred in the last decades allow the development of new theoretical tools that enable a better understanding of the skilled migration processes. From this perspective, the chapter aims to review the main concepts provided by the literature on skilled migration and to highlight the potential of the brain networking perspective as a theoretical and political tool. The second objective of the chapter is to present the main findings of the survey conducted in 2010 to a sample of 217 skilled Romanian immigrants that are part of the international brain network GRASP (Global Romanian Society of Young Professionals).