Doctoral Researchers

Labor migration is currently considered a substantial global phenomenon, with many countries confronting labor shortages in specific sectors, while others have high unemployment rates.  Skills Mobility Partnerships (SMPs) have emerged as a tool for facilitating cross-border labor markets between countries of origin and destination. The SMPs have been usually criticized for being limited pilot programs. Meanwhile, the SMPs’ significance might exceed simple numerical considerations; instead, SMPs might potentially provoke transformative outcomes on the labor migration governance in both countries of origin and destination. Therefore, this study examines the question, “How do SMPs as a tool for cross-border Labour markets contribute to the development of labor migration governance in the countries of origin and destination? The study specifically targets the case studies of EU-North Africa SMPs, focusing on Germany, Belgium, and France as destination countries, and Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia as countries of origin. To address the research question, a conceptual framework is formulated and the comparative case studies approach is employed utilizing qualitative methods.

As of December 2023, the number of foreign physicians in Germany rose to 63,567, a 104.1% increase over the last decade, making up 14.9% of the country's active physicians. The largest group among them is Syrian, followed by Romanian, Austrian, Greek, Russian and Turkish physicians. Foreign physicians are recruited to alleviate the physician deficiency's impacts and maintain healthcare services, especially in the rural areas of Germany. Moreover, interviews with Turkish physicians reveal that foreign doctors often enter specialties less favoured by German physicians due to language barriers and initial job market competition. These geographical and specialty specific division among physicians reflect a potential segmentation in the German healthcare sector. The aim of the research is to investigate this segmentation guided by dual labour market theory and to shed light on the factors that restrict them to specific geographies and specialties.

TBA

The research project examines transnational higher education in relation to cross-border labour markets and transnational labour mobility. It situates this phenomenon within a broader historical, economic, and political context, questioning why and how it emerged, how it functions, how it interacts with actors of cross-border labour markets such as states, corporations, and intermediaries, and to what extent it contributes to the emergence, consolidation, and operation of these markets.

The project adopts an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on perspectives from sociology, economics, political science, international relations, and history to investigate the dynamics at play. Through a detailed case analysis, it aims to provide an in-depth examination of empirical data to explore the intersection between transnational higher education and cross-border labour markets, and to offer findings that are applicable beyond the specific cases studied.

TBA

Logistics plays a crucial role for the operation of contemporary global production networks.  Today, the sector is characterized by competitive subcontracting and fragmentation, the dominance of transnational corporations and a variegated landscape of different business models driven by intense supply chain pressures.  Faced with significant labour shortages over time, employers, business associations and governments in various European countries have expanded their search for a labour force into countries outside of the EU.  The project investigates the development of the sector since the liberalisation phases of the late 1980ies that have significantly shaped the respective labour market. It focuses on Germany, Poland and Lithuania as countries with different institutional contexts and migration regimes. Using qualitative methodology, the projects reconstructs how actors at different „scales“ (sectoral, national, supranational) have contributed to the development of a distinctive „cross-border labour market“ in the European union, and how developments on different scales have interacted with each other.

My research proposal aims to explore the intersection of cultural exchange and reproductive labour in au pair programmes, focusing on Brazil as the sending country and Germany as the receiving country. Au pair programmes’ informal and unregulated settings allow for a broad spectrum of discourse to its promotion (Hess & Puckhaber, 2004), which may differ for each involved part. This discourse is co-produced by various social actors and institutions across borders and maintains an ambivalence about the exchange as being mainly a cultural and language learning experience, disguising the labour aspect of it. With these reflections, the study argues that au pairing is a form of reproductive labour, whose commodification is obscured by its cultural framing. Drawing on feminist theories of social reproduction and employing ethnographic methods, discourse analysis, and literature review, the aim is to investigate how institutions such as agencies, regulatory bodies, intermediaries and households contribute to creating and sustaining a cross-border reproductive labour market. The research project highlights how Brazilian women are increasingly navigating this market through social media platforms, which significantly shape the imaginary of the au pair programmes. By critically examining institutions involved in these programmes in Brazil and Germany, this project seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the cultural, social, and economic dynamics driving this global phenomenon, and how it perpetuates the invisibilization of reproductive labour within labour legislations. The contribution of this research to the existing literature is to explore how cultural processes and social interactions shape the creation of a cross-border labour market that does not initially appear as one.

In my doctoral project I analyse the establishment of labour regimes in Global Production Networks (GPNs). I focus on the strategic activities of transnational corporations as lead firms in these GPNs and their interaction with other relevant actors in the process of establishing labour regimes. Empirically I study the GPN of batteries for electric vehicles with the Volkswagen Group (VW) as the lead firm. I focus on two sites of the production network: a nickel mining project in Indonesia and the production of batteries in Hungary. While VW plays a direct role in the first case as part of a joint venture, the batteries produced for VW in Hungary are manufactured by VWs supplier Samsung. However, in both cases VW plays a direct or indirect role in the social regulation of the respective labour regimes with the goal of shaping the conditions of production in its favour.

I analyse the role and the strategies VW uses to establishing labour regimes through its participation in struggles over relevant policies like labour policy, trade policy, or foreign investment regulations. From a materialist-historical perspective I will look at the structures and institutionalised mechanisms of decision making, which favour certain actors and interests, and the role of the uneven development of global capitalism for the arrangement of GPNs to address the question of how labour relations across borders are organised and reproduced in global capitalism.

This study examines the viability of social and legal frameworks in transnational labor markets, focusing on Jordan as a case study. In the context of an increasingly globalized economy, transnational employment has become commonplace. This research aims to understand the emerging social order of labor markets that account for global migration movements, particularly in Jordan in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, examining labor market shaping through north to south FDIs and export processing zones, tackling the refugee governance and how refugee influxes reshape the labor market, as well as, the role of inter-state agreements and how regional and international institutions shape and filter how migrant workers integrate.

Jordan, traditionally a country of emigration, has also developed into a country of immigration, with a significant proportion of foreign employment in various sectors. This demand is mainly met by Egypt and the Asian region. However, due to regional crises and wars, a large number of people have been forcibly displaced to Jordan, seeking work opportunities to improve their livelihoods.

The study will analyze the developing transnational employment model in Jordan, providing insights into the national conditions that influence the success of or obstacles to the implementation of transnational employment. It will also trace institutional developments to identify and visualize the strategies associated with transnational migration in and to the country.

The research will utilize a mixed-methods approach, combining field research, surveys, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of existing data and literature. The findings are expected to contribute to the optimization of transnational employment, promoting fair working conditions, protecting the rights of migrant workers, and encouraging labor mobility. Ethical considerations, such as informed consent and confidentiality, will be strictly adhered to throughout the research process.

TBA

During the corona pandemic, telework increased considerably, enabling categories of professions and businesses to pursue their activity, and will remain to a certain extent, a way of working. Moreover, many citizens have found advantages with telework, during that period (e.g., with the saving of transport time). Germany has agreed bilateral framework agreement with Austria, which allows employees to perform up to 40 percent of their total working time physically in the country of residence without changing the applicable social security legislation. The paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of this policy and analyze the role of bilateral agreements in regulating cross-border labor markets and protecting the rights of workers.

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The global COVID-19 outbreak has underscored systemic inequalities, particularly affecting vulnerable populations such as labor migrants. This research investigates the experiences of Chinese labor migrants in Italy, focusing on their understanding of labor rights and protections outside China. Italy hosts a significant population of Chinese labor migrants, who have encountered increased sinophobia among other challenges caused by restrictive movement regulations and work reorganization during the pandemic. This study examines the highly organized nature of the Chinese migrant community and how the Chinese migration industry, with its various actors and mechanisms, shapes the work experiences of this group. By exploring the case of labor migrants from an authoritarian state adapting to work in a democratic state, the research aims to shed light on how their awareness of employment status and local labor laws is formed. While the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a crisis that exposed unknown realities about cross-border labor markets and social protections, the primary focus of this study is to understand the broader dynamics of labor migration and rights awareness in this context and gain insights into possible future crises. The expected outcomes include a better understanding of cross-border labor markets and the influence of political regimes on labor migration, informed by the case of Chinese labor migrants in Italy.

TBA

Focusing on the work life, career trajectory, and associated mobility of circus artists who perform on circus stages and at other entertainment venues as a long-term economic strategy, my dissertation investigates mobility in the work life as a strategy for career progression. By examining a working culture at the intersection of culture, creative careers, and global labor markets, this study will provide insights into the highly mobile working and spatial arrangements of contemporary circus artists.

The primary aim of this thesis is to explore the multifaceted nature of cross-border labor markets as they pertain to circus artists. It will delve into the various types of borders crossed by these performers, and by circus as a form of art in general, encompassing the divide between art and commerce, work life and private life, and the physical-geographical boundaries associated with working and living in countries other than their country of origin. The concept of a "country of origin" itself will be scrutinized within the context of the development of circus as a form of art and entertainment across the globe. This study thus aligns with current debates on global labor markets, labor in creative industries, and transnational communities.

Employing qualitative research methods, this study aims to illuminate the circumstances and actors that enable performers to establish and sustain careers as circus artists. The research will utilize the categories of competition, cooperation, collaboration, and emulation to describe the labor life-world of circus performers. These categories will serve as a framework for understanding the dynamics of global labor markets in creative industries.

This project investigates the role of international recruiters (e.g. migration brokers, subcontractors and for-profit personnel agencies) and social networks for individual migration decisions as well as cross-border migration flows. The objective is to develop a sound theoretical framework for understanding the decisions of workers and firms in contacting international recruiting companies, contract conditions, the process of intermediation and cross-border matching of workers to vacancies.
This framework will allow us to study the effect of intermediation conditions and competition between recruiters on workers’ wages, unemployment, welfare and migration flows in a two-country setting. In particular, the goal is to investigate which factors enable the entry of international recruiters, as well as their competition reflected in comparing the monopolistic and oligopolistic settings.
Special attention will also be given to the trilateral (i.e. worker, firm, recruiter) wage determination mechanism. The model will be developed in a search and matching modelling framework and tested by using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and from the German Migration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS).

Over the last quarter of a century, cross-border labor markets in Northern Eurasia have developed in such a way that Russia has been the main center of gravity for mobile workers from countries with a Soviet past. However, after the start of Russia’s full-scale military aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, a new migration phenomenon has emerged in the region. This phenomenon consists of the outflow of Russians who left because of the war. A significant number of them have been accommodated in neighboring countries, namely Kazakhstan and Georgia. Since neither Russia nor the authorities of these countries facilitate the employment of Russian migrants, the latter take it upon themselves to create infrastructures that help them navigate through uncertainty. These infrastructures help Russian citizens who are stuck in transit to complete the documentation process, find jobs and housing, and receive psychological support.

Conceptualizing the infrastructures in question as assemblages of physical, technical, and social elements, this study aims to explore how cognitive orientations that condition the Russian migrants’ labor activities, are constructed within them. To achieve this goal, the research project focuses on the following issues: (a) the constellation of participants in the relevant infrastructures in terms of their professional skills and employment expectations; (b) the role of infrastructures created by Russian migrants in aggregating information about employment opportunities; (c) the collection, exchange and validation of this information in virtual and physical spaces; (d) the ability of mutual support infrastructures to empower Russian migrants in their job search; (e) the stabilization of Russian migrants’ expectations and employment strategies under the influence of labor regulation institutions on the one hand and the studied infrastructures on the other.