ERSTE FoundationFellowship for Social Research

Labour Market and Employment in Central and Eastern Europe

2013–2014

Costs and benefits of labor migration on migrants’ professional trajectories and their households’ well-being: comparative case study of Ukrainian labor migration to Italy and Ireland.Olena Fedyuk

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Costs  and  benefits  of  labor  migration  on  migrants’  professional  trajectories and their   households’   well-being: comparative case study of Ukrainian labor migration to Italy and Ireland. By Olena Fedyuk Abstract. Based on the interviews with Ukrainian migrants of different regularity statuses in Italy and the Republic of Ireland, this study sets off to unbox the notion of “regularity” as a clear-cut and unambiguous state and explore in depth the fragmentation of status and rights that the process of regularization often entail. The study also looks at the emerging compensating mechanisms and networks that are developed by migrants in place of the institutional dead-ends. Legality and regularity in migration, - that are often presented in policy making as a black and white matter, - are in practice, a complex and lengthy process for migrating individuals. In public debates and policy-making legal / regularized migrants are often presented as welcome and wanted while illegal ones as unwanted and often criminal. In practice, however, a lengthy process of regularization and the lack of communication between various state institutions involved create a vast number of forms of semi-regular states of liminal legality (Menjivar 20116) among migrants, where family members often have different status. Many spent years suspended in processes of applying, re-applying and (re-)validating their status. All of these shades of regularity open or close certain doors to employment, mobility, social services, health and studying opportunities and, to a great extent,   affect   people’s   professional   opportunities,   migratory   decisions   and   trajectories,  family rights and personal lives. The research looks into access to labor market, social security and opportunities for mobility for Ukrainian migrants in countries that have different immigration regimes. This research project was developed within the ERSTE Foundation Fellowship for Social Research 2013 Parts of this project have been developed with a support of ENPI project on “Costs and benefits of increased labor mobility between the EaP countries and the EU.”

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1. Introduction and the state-of-the-art: striking a balance between fear and need in the EU.

Opening up of national borders among the EU member states triggered new waves of moral panics about the immigration and created the need for more elaborate forms of hierarchies that would regulate spatial and social mobility of its citizens, particularly access to labour, welfare and voting rights. While internal physical border controls have been disappearing, new forms of classifications, permissions, nationality- and occupation-based provisions pushed the frontiers of exclusion and inclusion inside the national labour markets and welfares, creating more tangible barriers for particular groups of EU citizens and even more so, for the 3rd country nationals.

EU nation states have moved away from closed national borders into a complicated pattern of openings and closures in the spheres of labour markets and social benefits based on the age, nationality and occupational background of a migrant, thus redefining the very nature of the relation between the state, citizens and external labour force (De Genova 2013). Economic meltdown of the last six years increased precariousness of the local jobs; to some small degree it intensified the competition between the immigrant and the local workers, but mostly resulting in fears, anti-immigrant sentiments, stereotyping and in, increasingly more so, in right-wing anti-immigrant attitudes and violence.

These powerful transformations led to a certain crisis of discipline in migration studies, as scholars are grappling with the nature of these changes, defining them as proliferation of borders (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013), fragmented citizenship (Deneva 2013), differential inclusion (De Genova 2013), contractual or contribution-based citizenship (Sommers 2008). All of these analytical frameworks grapple with the same idea – how the state redraws inclusion and exclusion of particular groups of people and individuals into labour markets and welfare, maximizing its benefit and individualizing the cost. Regulating migration by the ethnic, gender, social and professional profile of migrants becomes one of the main ways of maximizing profits. The principle of categorization of migrants justifies the different treatment of the human beings based on their perceived value for the EU labour markets (an approach which in many ways became not only a normative vision of the policy makers  but  a  form  of  “common  sense”  in thinking about migration).

EU’s  acknowledged priority for high-skilled labour, which found its reflection in the EU Blue Card Directive also primarily reflects  Europe’s  reinforcement  of the principle of  “cataloguing”  migrants  by  their  skills,  nationality, and income. This principle have not only widened the   gap   between   the   “good”   (high-skilled and prosperous migrants)  and  “poor”   (and  unwanted  migrants) (De Somer 2012, De Genova 2013) but effectively legitimized intensification of control over various labour flows. Division into highly skilled professionals, international students, and temporary, seasonal or circular (low-skilled workers) reflects the utilitarian approach to human individuals and furthermore justifies the differential provisions for migrants, such as prospects for long-term residence, renewal of contracts, reunification of the families, prospects for studying and carrier advance, access to social benefits. Thus, EU Blue

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Card Directive allows for a passage for those with enough skills and resources that overwrites EU citizenship limitations, giving green light to professionals and people with capital, in many ways equating their citizenship rights with those of the EU members.

The flip side of this program, however, is the implication that the EU does not need a low-skilled migration. Nevertheless, there are numerous evidences that the EU continues to rely heavily on the immigrant labour in many so   called   “low-skilled” sectors, particularly all forms of care, catering, construction, food processing, etc. (OECD 2012). Imposing labour market access limitations for the new member states is one of the prominent ways to control mobility of the workers classified as low skilled. In perpetuating the closures to labour market and social benefits, EU brings closer some of its citizens to non-EU citizens re-creating hierarchies and second-class citizenship. Thus, while joining the EU allowed for inclusion of the new member states and higher mobility, the borders and exclusion has moved from the territorial realm into the dimension of access to labour and social security.

2. Aims, objectives and methodology

Several conceptual frameworks attempted a more nuanced understanding of the new practices of exclusion and inclusion of migrants through rapidly changing ideas of borders, forms of access to national labour markets, social benefits and political rights in the EU and Schengen zone (for instance De Genova 2013, Squire 2011). Therefore, more cross-disciplinary and critical research is needed to understand the shifting nature of growing precariousness, access and exclusion in the times of nominal opening of the territorial borders. Reflecting on the experience of limitations and opportunities among the respondents in this study, the paper has several objectives:

To  challenge  the  assumption  that  “legality”  or  “regularity”  of  migrants’  status  is a clear-cut categorical state.

To reveal that achieving regularity status is a complex and lengthy process for migrating individuals and often takes years to achieve and can result in various partial statuses.

To explore, how the various degrees of regularity, semi-regular conditions and limitations of migrants status affect their access to work, social security, mobility and family rights.

To explore the informal safety networks that emerge in response to various status limitations.

By referring to two country studies to compare possible impact of policies on migrants’  trajectories  and  networks.

In relation to such objectives my methodology consisted of ethnographic and policy analysis components. The ethnographic component, which comprised of semi-structured in-depth interviews, was essential for accessing respondents, who due to the   complexity   or   partiality   of   their   legal   status   remain   otherwise   “invisible”   to  authorities and various forms of surveying. Following migrants through informal

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networks and conducting in-depth interviews allowed to (a) trace professional trajectories before and during migration, (b) discuss envisioned prospects for further carriers and professional plans, (c) account for personal experience of overcoming employment difficulties, (d) trace the role of semi-formal strategies and networks that lead to employment, (e) account for the effects of various partial regularity statuses on personal lives and mobility.

Contrasting practices and personal histories with policy analysis of two distinct national immigration, welfare and labour regimes allowed to (a) embed personal stories and trajectories into the relevant policies, (b) see the effects of the policies on personal trajectories, (c) compare the effects of the policies and the informal practices   for   migrants’   employment,   security   and   mobility. Trying to compare possible impact of  policies  on  migrants’   trajectories  and  networks   it was important to have a comparative perspective between at least two migratory regimes. I looked into Italy and Ireland, which provided me with a number of differentiated factors that I would like to describe briefly, before turning to the main analysis of this study.

Ukrainian labour mobility. Statistics on contemporary labour migration from Ukraine display a conspicuous uncertainty of estimates: from 1.5-2 million indicated by some Ukrainian large-scale sociological surveys (Libanova, et al 2008, Malynovska 2006) to 5 million, i.e. 20 per cent of working population of Ukraine (Kyzyma 2006, Hofmann and Reichel 2011). Malynovska (2004) estimates that 8-9 million unregistered Ukrainians are working abroad. Emigration intensity and its demographic characteristics are mostly defined by the gendered occupational sectors in the receiving countries; while more men migrate to Russia and Czech Republic to perform construction work, more women migrate to Southern Europe to engage in domestic and care work. Though male migrants dominate Ukrainian emigration, the number of migrating women is reportedly higher in Western regions of Ukraine, where women comprise 60-70% of those working abroad (Volodko 2011, Zhurzhenko, 2008). The flows to such countries as Italy and Greece are particularly feminized: over 80% of all migrants are women in both cases (Istat 2011, Volodko 2011). Employment in the domestic sector among the Ukrainian migrants has the lowest per cent of written contracts (just over 16%). Respectively, the countries that hire a great number of Ukrainian domestic workers share the lowest percentage of the written contracts (Russia, Poland, Italy) (Vakhtinova and Coup, 2013).

By work sector there is the following division of Ukrainian migrants abroad: 50-55% of migrants are involved in construction and 15-20% of them provide domestic and care services, 8-9% are in agriculture and a similar ratio of them in trade activities, 8.5% in agriculture and only about 5% in industry (Malynovska 2010, Vakhtinova and Coup, 2013). Russia is the preferred destination country (almost 50% ), Italy and Czech Republic (13-14%) follow it, 7-8% of Ukrainians migrate to Poland, 2-4% of them to Spain, Portugal, and Hungary and 8-9% to other countries (estimations from Malynovska 2010).

Ukrainian migration to Italy and Ireland differ in their intensity and demographic composition but both reflect main principles of post-independence labour migration, i.e. the demographic composition of migratory flows reflect the demand in gendered work sectors employing the migrants. Moreover, the distance to and the difficulty of entering the respectivenational borders, determine individual costs of such mobility

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and, thus, to a degree are responsible for the composition of such flows. Ukrainian migration flows to both countries are new and have no history prior to the post-independence wave. Thus, Italy has 170 000 officially registered migrants and twice as much unofficial estimates; around 80% of all registered migrants are women, the average age of Ukrainian women in Italy is over 40 (Marchetti et al 2013), majority of who are working in the domestic and geriatric care sector. Majority of the migrants arrive to Italy on a short-term tourist visa issued by another Schengen state and, making use of the EU borderless territory, make their way to Italy. Here, as it will be discussed in greater detail in the results section, many women find work as live-in domestics, overstay their visa and spend several years in pursue of legalization.

In Ireland, the data on the number of Ukrainians can be drawn from the number of work permits, which between 2003 and 2009 added up to 13 thousand (Markov, et al. 2009). This migratory flow is characterized by more equal sex division and younger migration, while migrants’ employment follows similarly gendered sector division of labour: men in construction, women in domestic work. Additionally, many get employment at farms, food processing and recently – and increasingly – in high-skilled employment. Since, as it will be discussed in the result section, the Republic of Ireland and the UK (with which it shares but a nominal border) have a stronger border control, migration to these countries is happening through the purchase of expensive (up to 4-5000 Euro) visas or work permits through intermediaries. Alternatively, access can be gained via purchase of the travel and work-permitting documents1 of the New EU Member States, such as Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. Travelling from  these  respective  countries  with  “internal”  EU documents allows for less rigorous passport controls, but, unlike in the Italian case, it does not give any hope for regularization of the status in the future.

In both, - migratory regimes of Italy and Ireland, - various forms of informality punctuate the histories of most Ukrainian migrants, making them invisible to many methods of surveying but an in-depth ethnographic enquiry. The differences of the two distinctive regimes, are primarily responsible for a great divergence of situational practices, access to welfare and labour, as well as mobility, safety networks and self-justifications among my respondents in two countries. Therefore, before I turn to discussing interview materials, I first turn to a more detailed discussion of migratory, welfare and labour regimes of the two country cases.

3. Italy and Ireland: at the intersection of migration and labor regimes.

I  refer  to  William’s  definition  of  regime  as  a  sum  of  policies,  practices  and  outcomes,  which lead to a particular configuration of opportunities and limitations for migrants (Williams 2012). Williams observes that nation-states exist in a dynamic relationship of such interconnected domains as family, nation and work. Immigrant domestic care labour comes in particularly timely into a shifting nature of all three of these domains, i.e. the changing  nature  of  work  (as  in  rising  rates  of  women’s  participation  in labour markets), families (changes in the family structures linked to ageing and

1 “Work-permitting / travel documents” is a general term that I use instead of specific names of the documents in order to protect revealing the specificities of the strategies employed by my respondents.

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decrease of fertility rates) and nations (increasing role of multi-level governance, shifting dimensions of inclusion and exclusion mechanisms). In order to understand the emerging forms of migrant labour one needs to unfold the specificities of the national migration regimes, employment and care policy legacies, as well as ethnicized and gendered discourses (Williams 2012: 369).

Regulation of migration in the EU is happening at a number of levels: supranational, national and local. Envisioning internal mobility as one of the founding principles of the EU, it has been striving to create an effective overarching principle of protecting its exterior borders, as well as principles of regulating internal flows of labour. While supra-national policies can serve as overarching principle, the main immigration policies in effect are the ones at the national level, which can be clearly seen in a variety of national migration policies and in Blue Card debates of the last 7 years (see De Sommers 2013). Moreover, while national policies overwrite general EU principles, local institutional practices often create additional passages or dead-ends on the local level. While exploring the effect of the local institutional framework would require a much more immersed ethnographic research, I will focus on the national level of policies as ones creating particular migration regimes that affected my interviewees.

National migration regimes in Italy and the Republic of Ireland.

The group of immigration policies that set the basis of present-day immigration regime in Italy dates back to the end of the 1990s – early 2000s. Drafted by the right-wing government at the time and being rather harsh on immigration in general, it became challenged by many social actors (including the Catholic Church, trade unions, employers’ associations and individual employers) exactly on the basis of the importance of the role of the domestic workers and carers in Italian families (van Hooren 2010, 2011). This resulted in adaptation of the regulations to allow for annual regularization of immigrant workers, in particular domestic and care givers. The annual waves of regularization, were organized around national and general immigrant quotas till 2005, when domestic workers were singled out in addition to national and other occupational quotas, receiving 15 000 places, comparing to 16 000 places for all other occupations. Domestic  workers’/  carers’  quotas  grew  at  an  amazing pace ever after. In 2008, due to the perceived effect of the economic crisis, Berlusconi’s   government   abolished   any  other   occupational   quotas   for  migrants,   at  the same time raising domestic   worker’s   quotas   to   its   record   number   of   105,400  domestic workers (van Hooren 2010).

Thus, there are three distinct ways in which Italy has opened the doors to domestic and care workers while maintaining quite high anti-immigrant sentiment in general: (1) regularization for domestic workers already present in the country illegally or working in this sector irregularly (i.e. without proper work permits), (2) special entrance and work permit quotas for care and domestic workers (vs. national quotas for migrants for other occupations), and (3) allowing Romanians and Bulgarians to take up work in care sector without any restrictions (as opposed to limitations in other occupations) (van Hooren 2010, Marchetti et al 2013). This outstanding effort to maintain the supply of immigrant care labour went in sharp contrast not only to the generally anti-immigrant governments and raising

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negative sentiments among the public (especially in relation to particular nationals, such as Romanians). It further went along with the 20 years-long persistent failure of Italian state to reform its welfare in the areas of long-term care and particularly care for elderly and disabled (Da Roit and Le Bihan 2010). This particular combination of care and immigration regimes marked the transformation  of  the  Italian  “family”  care  model   into   the  “migrant-in- the-family’  model  of   care   (Van  Hooren  2010,  Bettio  et  al., 2006, Van Hooren 2011) and positions migrants as providers of the welfare (Marchetti 2013).

Unlike Italy, entering Ireland on a tourist visa to a different Schengen state is complicated by the fact that ithas on land borders with other Schengen states that can be crossed easily and unnoticeably,. However, it shares only a nominal border with the Northern Ireland and thus is open for those who succeeded entering the UK. Since 2011, Ukrainian holders of the UK general visa became eligible for visiting the Republic of Ireland as well, under a Short-stay Visa Waiver Programme that was conspicuously described by the Irish Government, as a“part  of  its  Jobs  Initiative  with  a view to promoting tourism from emerging markets”2. Work is only allowed for Ukrainian citizens with the valid work permit, however, the list of jobs currently ineligible for work permit applications include most of the  “unskilled”  occupations,  including Craft Workers and Apprentice, Hotel Tourism and Catering, all categories of Childcare Workers, Labourers and Operatives, Administrative Positions, Sales and Transport Staff3. The only set of jobs that qualify for work permits have no occupational limitations but an income threshold; i.e. the annual salary is EUR 30,000 a year or more makes work permit available for all professions. This regulation not only blocked an opportunity to enter for work but to stay in work for all   those   Ukrainians   who’s   work   permit   has   expired thus marking a major shift towards illegalization of the immigrant labour force by the Irish state.

Both eastward expansion of the EU in 2004 and economic crisis of 2007-2008 made major practical difference for Ukrainian labour force attempting and entering the Republic of Ireland. Since majority of the respondents in this study entered and stayed Ireland using the identification documents purchased from NMS nationals, I briefly account here for the welfare and labour regulations linked to the NMS nationals.

Prompted by the Irish booming economy, the state readily opened its borders and the labour market to ten NMS in 2004. However, already in 2004 measures have been taken to limit migrants’ access to welfare by introducing 2-year residence rule, according to which NMS immigrants could claim welfare benefits on the basis of “habitual  residence”,  i.e.  a  proved  continuous  residence  in  the  UK  or  Ireland  for  two  years prior to the application. The deepest economic recession since the 1930s that hit Ireland in 2007-8 caused an insurgence of anti-immigrant sentiment and the restrictions of migrants’  access to the welfare system on account of five criteria: (1) length and continuity of stay or residence, (2) length and purpose of any absence from   Ireland,   (3)   nature   and   pattern   of   employment,   (4)   person’s   main   centre of interest, (5) future intensions (Barret and Joyce 2011). Since most of the

2 http://www.irishconsulate.kiev.ua/en/short-stay-visa-waiver-programme 3 http://www.workpermit.com/ireland/ineligible_job_categories.htm

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respondents in this study maintained work-permitting documents of NMS nationals, they remain invisible in any form of surveying, appearing as NMS nationals. In 2006 there were 94 thousand of Polish and 20 thousand for Lithuanian Personal Public Service Numbers (PPSN) registered in Ireland; a number that in 2008 declined to 42 thousand and five thousand respectively. While the crisis affected sharply the number of new PPSNs it gave no evidence of the return of migrants already registered in the country. Thus, while 209 thousand NMS nationals were living in Ireland in the beginning of 2008, 185 thousand were registered in 2009 (Krings et al. 2009).

Finally, a few words need to be said about the difference in the effect of the economic recession on Italy and Ireland and their migration policies. Italy, which has in the recent 30 years increase in the demand for care (especially geriatric care) maintained the steady demand in this sphere irrelatively of the crisis. Ireland has undergone the construction boom before 2007, and sharp drop and increase in unemployment after 2007, which was felt particularly sharp among the immigrant population employed in the labour sectors suffering most from recession (e.g. construction). Thus, while unemployment rates among Irish nationals increased from 4.6 to 9.4 per cent it grew from 6.4 to 17.7 per cent among the NMS nationals (Krings at al. 2009).

4. Findings

All in all 12 respondents were interviewed in Dublin, the Republic of Ireland and 10 in Bologna, Italy. The factual information about the respondents can be found the charts (Appendix 3 and 4), however, it is important here to say a few words about the background of both groups.

Despite the relatively small number of respondents, Irish cohort demonstrated much bigger diversity of occupations, age and gender than Italian cohort, which in general reflects the difference in composition of Ukrainian migratory flows to these two countries. In Dublin the total of 5 women and 7 men of different age (between 25–52) were interviewed. Among them three men were unemployed (one wanted to stay in Dublin and the others planned to return to Ukraine), two men were high-skilled migrant employed (1) in a university, (2) by an IT multinational corporation, two workers drifted between a variety of manual jobs. Among the women two worked as cleaning ladies, one - as a super-market manager, one as a hair dresser and one more in a coffee-shop. In Italy, 9 women and 1 man between the age of 33 and 70 were interviewed. 6 out of 9 women worked in geriatric care, 1 (the youngest woman) worked as a baby-sitter and 2 were self-employed (one was running a cleaning agency and the other - a women's clothes shop). The interviewed man was out of work.

Comparing interviews from two countries it became clear that various forms of regularity, that the national migration regimes offered to my respondents, created differentiated set of obstacle for individual migrants in advancing claims for social security, slowing down their professional mobility, enforcing dependencies on state bureaucracy, creating particular fragmentation of migrants’   .   Various   temporary  work statuses, however, unanimously left migrants in pro-longed waiting for the

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rights that would equate them and give an equal status with the local workers.. These   resulted   in   migrants’   putting   on   hold   their   professional   advance,   family  reunifications, opportunities for studying, spatial mobility, starting a family, etc. Additionally, years spent in waiting for full legalization of statuses left most respondents with   “white   spots”   in   their   carriers which negatively affected further professional opportunities, access to social benefits in both countries and obscured the opportunities of return to Ukraine. I will now turn to discussion of the main points in these findings by detailing them through my interview materials.

4.1 Italy: an aging care- worker.

Summarizing interviews there seem a certain collective profile that can be drawn on the   similarities   of   my   respondents’   trajectories   that   can   be   presented   in   the  following highlights: Entering Italy on a tourist visa and overstaying. Staying 2-5 years in irregular employment, reluctant to change the original

employer in the hope that the latter regularize them (agreeing on less money, more work, harsher conditions).

Women are more likely to get regularized then men, as men work in construction sites and less regular jobs that do not lead to establishing close connection to the employer.

After regularizing their status for the first time, all respondents had to renew residence permits every one - three years for at least five years: the bureaucratic drag of the seemingly clear procedure often delayed renewal of the papers, forcing respondents to postpone their visits home or switching to a better job.

Preferring to stay with employers who can secure renewal of the documents, even in cases of underpayments, failure to pay social security benefits or provide lawful free time.

Due to the personalized nature of care work most respondents preferred not to solve any issues with tax or social security payments via legal means, but through negotiation or avoiding conflict.

Often prefer to use health services during their vacation in Ukraine, even if entitled to health benefits in Italy. Due to the nature of care work respondents suggested that they have little or no opportunity to leave the person in care to attend hospitals or schedule long-awaited appointments. In Ukraine, they rely on informally paid services that allow them to obtain services on the spot but at a rapidly growing price..

No bilateral agreements exist between Ukraine and Italy concerning pensions; a care-giver is eligible for a pension payment in Italy after 15 years of regularized work, which in case of Ukrainian migrants has two major problems: (1) many migrants spend several years in irregular employment, which   are   “lost   years”   form   the   social   benefits   perspective,   (2) due to the particular demographic profile of Ukrainian care-givers in Italy (i.e. over 40) many quit due to age and hardships of profession before they reach the required 15 years of regularized occupation.

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I will now turn to illustrate some of these points through the selected abstracts from interviews.

4.1.1 The cost of initial migration.

It was observed that for many of my respondents initial migration was linked with quite outstanding expenses due to (a) a rather desperate economic situation at the moment of their departure, (b) lack of transparent mechanisms of obtaining traveling documents or permissions for work and accessible knowledge about the existing opportunities, (c) often fraudulent activities of the intermediaries. In Italy all of my respondents identified the following expenses linked to their initial migration: (a) travel expenses, (b) visa expenses (identified by and paid to intermediaries), (c) the price of the job (that had to be bought from the previous employee or from an intermediary), (d) quickly growing debt on the money that was borrowed in order to pay the travel and visa expenses.

None of my respondents entered Italy on a proper work visa; majority entered on a Schengen travel visa opened to some country in the EU via more or less official intermediary companies. In relation to travel expenses, several of my respondents made more than one trip before they could enter the destination country; several travelled with fake or doubtful visas, and a few respondents were detained and returned to Ukraine at least once:

…   In   fact,   I’ve   left   Ukraine   twice:   once   we   had   a   proper   visa   but   they   found   some  wrong  stamp in my passport, so I was turned back from the German border with the deportation stamp. The second time I already went by myself, through Moscow, then Barcelona, and then France. I paid 800 USD the first time [which was not given back]. The second time I threatened  them  [the  visa  issuing  agency]…  Since  I  had  the  protocol  from  the  German  border  I said I will go with this paper to police. They gave me new visa for free, but I paid 450 Euro for the trip (Katia,52, IT). …I  also  changed  my  passport  three  times…of  course,  for  all  of  this  I  had  no  money…at  first  I  had a German visa, but was returned from the border, second time I had Spanish or Portuguese   visa…I   don’t   remember…but   I   didn’t   go   because  my   husband   then   got   stabbed  and  he  was  in  the  hospital.  The  agency  said  “fine,  pay  the  buck  for  the  visa  and  don’t  go,  fine  with  us.”  So  I  paid  but  I  didn’t  go…I  had  to  start  all  over  again,  the  third  time... it was a Greek visa (Lilia, 39, IT).

These experiences of dependencies and insecurity often became traumatic for my respondents. Many resolved to migrate as   a   “last   resort”   when   other   means   of  securing income were exhausted. The idea of migration possibilities, vague rumours and imaginations about the conditions of work and salaries made many into docile objects  of  entrepreneurial   schemes  by  the  “travel”  agencies  and  willing  to  pay  any  price for a mere possibility to migrate. Often being in a desperate financial situation, my respondents borrowed money at particularly high rates thus creating long-lasting dependencies:

…I   first   came   to  Greece…  back   in   1994…  our [Ukrainian] women already were there, some have stayed for 3-7 months, could speak some Greek.   And   I   couldn’t   learn   a  word…   I  was  depressed, thinking that I have debts and that if something happens to me my children will have to give back the debts, but how??? I only prayed to God to pay back those debts (Veronica, 60, IT).

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…  You know, it was a horrible  time  [2000]…Everyone  was  leaving  abroad,  and  not  only  that,  just it was a real dead-end, no money at all. No money to pay for electricity, gas…Catastrophe!   No   one  was   helping  me,   so   I   decided   to   borrow  money   at   a   rate.   From  some strangers [here: non-family], at a 10 % monthly rate. One month passed after I have borrowed 500 USD – 50  more  to  pay….  And  I  have  accumulated  pretty  big  sum,  because  first  I  thought  I  would  go  to  Portugal  but,  God  helped  me,  and  instead  I  went  to  Italy…  I  was  very  worried, waited for 2-3 months – no  reply   from  an  agency,  and  the  debts  were  growing…it  took me around 8 months of work in Italy to just give back the debts (Ljuba, 55, IT).

Similarly, in another interview when my respondent has initiated her trip 3 times, paying each time a fee for a false visa and then being returned from a border, she never managed to get the money back neither for the visa nor for the trip. My interviewee recalls that she has borrowed 2500 Euro under 10% rate per month (i.e. 120% yearly rate) for the trip. However, it took her 6 months (after she has borrowed the money) to accomplish this trip successfully, during which she stayed at home waiting for the documents and not being able to pay back the debt:

….I worked for those debts for 3 and half years. No one knew how much money I owed. I never told my children. No one knew, only me and God (Hanna, 70, IT).

In case of the investment for the first trip open up the issue of the individual cost of both entering visa regimes and overcoming distances. Many of my respondents were stranded from a few months to a few years in paying back their expenses linked to relocation and obtaining a job. This is an important obstacle for considering circularity, - a pattern that has been particularly celebrated by the EU policy makers (see Triandafillidou 2011),- even in those cases when there is a suitable employment and a legal status. The costs of such a move  seem  to  weigh  heavy  on  migrants’  both  economic situation (especially considering the state of chronic unemployment and under-payments that proceed the decision to migrate (point 3.1.1.)) and on migrants’   emotional   condition. Thus, most of the initial travel accounts to Italy remained a traumatic experience to my respondents, linked to periods of extreme dependencies (on intermediaries, border officials, and in three cases from Italy, criminal networks), insecurity and lack of control over the situation.

4.1.2. Access to labour market.

In   an   informal   system,   described   to  me   by   some   of  my   respondents   as   “common only  for  Ukrainian  migrants”  a  successful   job  reference   to  an  employer  would  be  a  paid service, even if exchanged between friends or relations:

…In  2002   I  paid  600  Euro   for   that   job…well,   she   [my   friend]  cheated  me  a  bit.  She  said  she  won’t  take  any  money but when my first month of work was over she borrowed some money from  me  and  never  gave  it  back.  When  I  asked  her  about  this  she  responded:  “What  did  you  think,  I  found  you  a  job  just  like  that,  for  free?”  (Katia,  52)    

…I was coming here [to Italy] to join my relative, but wherever you go, you need to pay for the  jobs.  I  paid  her  300  USD.  Back  then  [2000],  in  Naples  that  was  the  price…I  worked  only  3  months   there   and   then   escaped   from   there…because   there   I   was   not   even allowed to go out…after   three  months   I   was   going   crazy…   I   called   another   friend   and   I   asked   her   to   do  something,  to  take  me  out  of  there…ok…so  I  went  to  Bologna  where  she  found  me  a  job,  and  there I had to pay 500 Lira. (Oksana, 56).

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Paying for jobs effectively stands as an obstacle to mobility in migration; it prolongs migrants’  stay  in Italy, often makes a change of jobs a risky, expensive enterprise or leads to months of work without actual income. Thus, in one of the interviews, Ljuba (55) in a complex narrative of the string of jobs she has taken after her arrival 12 years ago, describes her periods of work as a 3, then 11, then 2, and then 3 months of consecutive employment periods in different families before she managed to secure a 3-year long job at an employer who also helped her to legalize her status. While with each new job she had an increase in salary (mostly due to the fact that she was moving from Naples up North), in each case, she had to pay for a new job amounts ranging between 200 -350 USD.

4.1.3. Rights vs. informal agreements.

In Italy where the nature of care and domestic work implied a more personalized connection to the employer, the ways of solving such issues as working hours, the scope of tasks, days off, the level of payment and the arrangement of social benefits varied greatly from respondent to respondent. While the interviewees seemed to be equally informed about their basic rights and payments (e.g. minimal salary, per diem in case of the live-in workers, yearly premium and termination contact payments), only one of my respondents (a younger woman) resolved to actual legal action against the employer. The rest of the respondents were prompt to self-exploitation in various forms, making their non-confrontational behaviour a symbolic investment into a good relationship with the employer, or a necessary rite of passage in the beginning of the migration.

In the following somewhat more elaborate example, Ljuba (55) narrates about her undocumented stay in Italy. After three years she was promised by her employer to have her contract signed, which would allow her to go home, however, when the documents were ready her employer prohibited Ljuba to leave:

…’  You,   Ljuba,’- she   told  me,   ‘won’t   go  home  now.  My  mother  has  a   terminal   disease,   the  doctor  said  she  won’t  live  long,  so  you  need  to  stay.’  But  how  long?  No  one  knew.  So  I  agreed.  And  stayed…  There   is   law  in   Italy,  but   if  you  would  try  to  follow  the   law,  you  would  end  up  without  a  job,  so  you  compromise  with  your  employer,  even  if  it’s  against  the  law…anyways,  what is this “law”? It’s nothing.

Similarly, after Ljuba's another employer retained 30 per centof her 13th salary payment for three years, she confronted him with this, but as the employer refused to pay Ljuba simply stepped back:

…  What could I do, go to court with him? I always say, thanks God I have a job, whatever he [employer] gave me is fine. I always compromise, those of our women who try to prove something, there are they are sitting in the park on a bench [unemployed]. I always compromise and they [employers] like people like me.

In another striking testimony of self-justification of the mistreatment, Veronica speaks of a sum of 6000-8000 Euro, which her employer retained in years of her work by not paying the 13th salary, even though she had official employment contract:

I have never asked for anything. Look, I have worked in Naples for three and a half years in one  family…I  was  working  legally,  had  the  contract.  They  didn’t  pay  me  once, neither my 13th

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salary,  nor  “contract  termination”  payment.  All   in all there was 6000-8000 Euro that I lost. I never  said  a  word.  I  told  my  employer  once:  “you  haven’t  paid  me.”  She  said  that  that  they  have  given  me  presents  and  therefore  won’t  pay  me  money.  I  could  have  gone  to  the  lawyer,  the law was on my side, and they  would  have  had  to  pay  me.  My  daughter  said:  “We  go  to  the  lawyer  without  your  permission.”  I  told  her:  “Listen,  they  go  to  church  every  Sunday,  they  say they are Christians. Legally I had to receive this money, they kept the record, wrote all down that  they  have  paid  it,  but  they  didn’t,  so  I  leave  it  on  their  consciousness.” I came to a foreign country, it was my own country that robbed me, deprived me of a job [possibility to have a job]. [ In Itay] I am not working in this family, I am helping them. I will not go to court with   anyone,   I   am   a   Christian…   If   they   give  me   something [payment] – good, if not, also good…  Now, where I work now, we have agreed on a salary and I know that by the law I need to have a day off and an afternoon off per week. They let me out only for 2 afternoons, so I work  extra  half  a  day.  I  don’t  demand,  I  tell  myself:  “thank  you,  God,  I  have  1000  Euro…  for  Ukraine   it’s  a   lot  of  money.”  Our  people  sometimes  go  to  court,   I  cannot  do  that,   it’s  not   in  my  nature…  there  are   so  many  people out of work these days, and comparing to Ukraine I have excellent salary so I never discuss money issues.

In both testimonies above, the mechanism of comparing the lack of opportunities in Ukraine and the prospect of losing an employment in Italy became a strong self-disciplining principle that allows the interviewees to get over the injustices even though they have legal status that can protect them from such injustices. Furthermore, both respondents give both law and money a symbolic, if not metaphysical   relevance;   thus,  Veronica  portrays  her  work   as   “help”   and  her   act  of  abandoning 6000 Euro as an act of Christian kindness, while Ljuba relies on compromise   and   consensus,   asking   an   essential   question:   “what   is   this   “law”, anyways?” This informal approach to work, symbolic investments and docile perspective comes up in another interview excerpt, where my respondent reflects on the nature of her work as a domestic live-in care-giver:

…  Before me, 7 Filipino workers went through this house. After me, no one will be able to pick up this job. Because we [Ukrainian women] are stupid like that. A Filipino woman is paid to do this and that, and she will do it, but nothing else. And when we are hired to look after an old men, we look after him, but in the meanwhile,  “I’ll  cook  as  well”  or  “I  will  clean  the  flat,  since  I  am  here”,  or  “   I  will   iron  the   laundry.”  You  know?  Like  as   if  we  are  at  home.  And  an  Italian employer will never hire a woman to whom he has to pay separately for looking after an old men, for cooking and then for ironing. He will only hire a woman like us. This is how we bring down prices for everyone, because we are too desperate (Iryna, 55).

Another widely spread strategy among the domestic workers is informal employment in the free from work time and use of occasionally arising opportunities of some extra earning. In fact, the majority of my respondents in Italy, even those who have permission to stay and work, would practice extra unregistered work along with the main official employment. Ideally, a geriatric-care job would be coupled   up   with   some   hours   of   cleaning   or   ironing   in   other   people’s   homes,  undertaken during the breaks. Depending on the individual arrangement, a domestic live-in worker would have free day on Sunday and a free afternoon on Thursday, with additional possible 1-2 hours break every day. These hours would often be used for additional jobs, as some of my respondents stated that they work for as many as six extra families in addition to their full time live-in employment. The tolerance of the main employer to these extra activities was considered a particularly valuable asset, even to the degree that women unhappy with low salary would keep working for  such  employer  “because  they  allow  me  to  earn  on  the  side”.  Moreover,  women  

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who   had  no   such   jobs   often   expressed   regret   that   they   “waste”   their   time   during  their breaks (from more detailed discussion see Fedyuk 2011, chapter 7).

4.1.4. Social benefits: balance between paying and using

Pension remained the issue of the most insecurity among all the respondents in both Ireland and Italy. Among other factors that complicated the pension issue for my respondents in Itlay were (a) a certain minimum number of years of legal employment (and consequently paid taxes and contributions), which was problematic because many respondents had considerable periods of unregistered employment, (b) practical arrangement of receiving the wages without holding a residence in the country of migration, and lack of bilateral agreements between the migration country and Ukraine about pension payments, (c) constantly changing rules and regulations, which left my respondents with a feeling that this issue is completely out of their control. In relation to Ukraine two main problems linked to the pension were that (a) the amount of pensions was very little, especially in comparison   to   the   migrants’   current   earnings   and   (b)   those   who   started   their  migration earlier in their lives, lacked any employment status in Ukraine. Those of my respondents who were too young to work in the USSR and consequently never worked in independent Ukraine were doubly disadvantaged; they remained unsure about their pension entitlements in the receiving country and had little prospects beyond a minimum pension in Ukraine.

…  Pension [in IT]? What pension [ironically]?! For a pension you need 15 years of legal work, all taxes and contributions paid, and around the age 67-68 they will pay this pension. So, what kind of pension is that? What, you expect me to push a walker here in front of me in Italy?  Maybe  I’ll  die  by  the  age  of  68.  I  pay  all  the  taxes  and  pension  contributions,  but  I  am  afraid  [that  I  will  not  receive  the  pension].  Some  people  say:  ”don’t  pay”.  But  how?  If  I  need  to renew my residence permit, and I want to have a permanent residence here. Maybe one day, really I would be able to work 3 months here, 3 months staying at home, if I have that permanent residence (Ljuba, 55, IT, 12 years in Italy).

As the interview above has showed there is a reasonable mistrust among the respondents in the social security benefits and their entitlement to them. Pension and other social contributions are often seen as a way to secure legal status in the country of migration rather  than  in  investment  into  one’s  future. The question of the pension system seems to me one of the most urgent issues of the social support to be solved as it keeps creating a strata of population that will have no entitlements for pension support in any of the countries and therefore will be increasingly dependent on their families. Already now, several respondents in Italy who are approaching retirement age but see no prospects of either receiving pension in Italy or supporting the standard of living created by the remittances on their Ukrainian pensions, remark that they will   stay   in   Italy   and   work   “as   long   as   health   would  permit.”    

My respondents in Italy had very contrasting opinions and a wide range of practices that tapped into the health systems of both countries. Some respondents had very positive experiences with the Italian health system, others, relied completely on the paid Ukrainian services. Those who preferred the Italian system argue that the health system was more humane and provided a very functional system of discounts, which made it incomparably cheaper than using the Ukrainian system,

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where all medications came at full price and services had to be unofficially paid in an envelope. Many indicated that the very nature of their employment in domestic and care sector does not leave them time to enjoy free health system in Italy:

…  I  pay  all  my  taxes  so  I  have  my  doctor  here  [in   Italy].  But   I  don’t  go  to  see  a  doctor  here.  Whenever I have a problem, I wait till vacation, and then do all the check-ups in Ukraine. Because here, even to make a blood test, you need to go there, leave your old granny [person after whom Ljuba takes care], which means you need to call her children first, ask them to come, and they never have time. So I prefer not to bother them. And in Ukraine, you pay and they will do the full checkup. Or   if   you   have   some   acquaintances   [doctors]   or   if   you   don’t  some of your family might, so they call the doctor and everything is taken care off. ... Last time I made a whole treatment, I paid and they took such a good care of me [laughs]. Though I am laughing  because  I  had  money  to  pay.  But  what  about  those  who  don’t?  (Ljuba,  55,  IT)

The informality and the preferential treatment that was enjoyed in Ukraine, who could afford paying for the services, was often quoted as the main advantage of the system. Some interviewees, however, reflected on this practice as morally problematic even by users, as they could not but compare themselves to those who did not have enough income to secure privileged services.

…Last   summer   I   had   a   surgery…   nothing   too   bad,   you   know,   the   woman’s   thing…   I   was  praying so hard and all went very smooth. Of course, I had to help that, I came to the hospital prepared. I work here in geriatric care, I know things and technologies that our poor hospitals have never seen or heard of. I brought everything with me – clean sheets, shirts, pampers, panty  liners  for  bleeding…everything.  And  of  course  I  paid  for  all  medication,  bondages,  food  while in hospital, everything. Then I gave immediately 30 Euro to the doctor, to the nurse, so that after the   surgery   the   doctor   himself   checked   if   everything   is   fine…   I   know   that   some  people prefer to go to the doctors here in Italy, but here you need to pay 30 Euro just for the blood test! What is 30 Euro here? Its nothing! And in Ukraine, ok, I had to pay more, but still, I was treated like a queen! It hurt me though to see some women in my ward who had no money and no one to come take care of them. I had my daughter-in-law coming with home-cooked  fresh   food  every  day…When   I  was   leaving,   I  gave  some  money   to the nurse to take better care and to change sheets and shirts for this one old lady, who was there in the ward all alone with not a soul visiting her (Oksana, 56, IT).

This raises an important point raised in some existing literature indicating that migrants tend to deplete the Ukrainian health system. Coupe and Vakhitova (2012) remark that “migrants  use  social  security  and  health  care  systems  financed  from  the  Ukrainian  budget  without  paying   taxes  and  social  contributions   in  Ukraine”   (2012).  While patterns of using the health services varied greatly, all those respondents who made use of it in Ukrainian indicated that they were paying for every medication and operation (officially), as well as gratitude payments to doctors and nurses personnel. This also held true for the members of their household; whenever there were health problems all other channels of expenditures would be cut down and remittances would be directed in order to get the best, paid treatment. Thus, respondents in my study contributed to the commercialization of medical services in Ukraine and– through their readiness to gratitude payments –to the flourishing of medical profession individuals, often observing the inflation of prices that their capacity to pay has brought to the local medicine and feeling haunted by the fact that they will not have a foreign income to make up the difference someday.

4.2. Republic of Ireland: liminal identities

Framed by a different set of limitations and opportunities available within Irish migratory regime, my respondents in Dublin developed very different strategies then

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their compatriots in Italy. I will now briefly summarise the experience of my respondents in the following collective profile:

Entering the Republic of Ireland either on a British work permit (through Northern Ireland), an Irish work permit (in early 2000s) or on an ID from a NMS (post-2004 and 2007).

In order to access employment – purchase documents from NMS nationals. Access  to  health  benefits  on  the  basis  of  “other  identity”. Feeling of guilt and fear for using double identities. No prospects for transferring earned benefits to their name, to Ukraine, or to

regularizing their status at all. Limited mobility (within the EU) and no mobility outside of the EU. Effect on family rights and personal lives - no possibility for marriage, divorce,

acknowledging parenthood. Limited possibilities for establishing trusting relations with Irish or other non-Ukrainian nationals, colleagues, partners, neighbours. 4.2.1 The cost of initial migration.

Distance, accessibility of the destination country, easiness of crossing the borders are all factors that often reflect in the price for the initial mobility for migrants. These factors constituted the main difference in price of initial migration to Italy and to the Republic of Ireland. Similarly to Italy, the motivation to migrate particularly to Ireland was justified by most of my respondents either by a presence of a relative in the country or an offer from an intermediary. However, in case of my respondents to the Republic of Ireland, distance and difficulty of crossing the border made difference in both price and the mode of crossing the borders. Moreover, most of the respondents had already family or relatives abroad, which allowed them to tap into their resources in order to make the initial migration step.

My respondents accounted for three main ways to enter the country: on a work permit to the Republic of Ireland, on a UK visa / travel and work-permitting document of a NMS nationals. Only one of my respondents paid no money to the intermediaries for her journey: in 2001 Tanya was recruited to work as a hairdresser through a Ukrainian agency by an Irish employer, who, according to my respondent, has paid all expenses connected to permit, work of the agency and her travel. Besides this case, a larger part of my respondents entered the Republic of Ireland through the mediation of various types of travel documents obtained from the citizens of the NMS. Eastward expansion of the EU and the Schengen zone in 2004 and 2007 made a great impact not only on the NMS but on the bordering non-EU states. The repositioning of the former in the geopolitical space of the EU stirred border activities which were seen as an opportunity for both non-EU citizens willing to travel and those NMS citizens, willing to turn their new membership into a resource. Thus, through gaining access to the NMS,- which was traditionally more easily obtained than access to the  “old” EU countries, - Ukrainian nationals obtained a chance for further unregistered mobility.

Bigger part of my respondents followed the path similar to Petro’s, whose story I turn to now: having a relative of his girlfriend in Ireland, he was prompted to choose this country for migration. Utilizing this connection, he managed to secure a Latvian

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travel document for 3000 Euro in Ireland, and then, making use of a regular travel agency in Ukraine obtained a Slovakian visa, for another 250 Euro. He then travelled to Slovakia, and from there, continued his journey on a different travel document. When speaking of his migration he seems unworried and confident – he and his girlfriend   are   from   the   family   of   labour   migrants,   with   Petro’s   father has been working in Spain for over 15 years. Petro was confident that one way or another he would go abroad, while the resources for the initial journey were also no obstacle.

Another migration pattern, exemplified by Valya’s migration story, starts with an expensive education: her father who has been working in Russia for over 12 years supported her study in one of the local chapter of a Kyiv-based university of finances and business. In 2006 Valya graduated with a lawyer degree but failed to find a job over the summer following her graduation. The opportunity came through her university professor who for a sum of 4000 USD provided an opportunity for his students to get a work permit in the UK, Ireland, Canada or Australia and work over the summer in agriculture. Paradoxically, Valya even now frames this employment as professional training provided from her University:

I was sent to work in the UK by my university. They used to give students a chance to work  abroad  after  graduation,  organized  for  them  work  permits.  (…)  It  was  not  really  a  professional   training…but   something   like   that.   One   of   the   professors was sending students to work on strawberry fields, he organized work permits for them. I paid 4000 USD for the whole thing and received a 12 month work permit and a contract with a mushroom   factory…to   pick   mushrooms.   Just   before   my   contract   expired   I decided to cross  border  to  Ireland  and  stay  without  work  permit.  My  classmate  was  already  there…  he said there were plenty of jobs.

Valya seemed to see no contradictions in the fact that her home university, while trains lawyers, sends its students to have “professional training” in strawberry fields for   a   “modest”   sum   of   4000   USD.   Fresh graduates struggling with practical applications of their expensive degrees are willing to try their chances abroad. An individual professor is hardly suspected of his mediatory position: his recruitment of cheap labour force is masked as professional training, his prices are inflated by the label of the university under which cover he provides his private services and it is unknown if he receives payment from potential labourers only or employers as well. This case presents an interesting example, when recruiting of cheap labour is happening not only through work and travel agencies but framed as an opportunity provided by a university and operates under its name (if not cover).

To sum up, Irish migration, which is in general younger, reveals other informal network that supports it: many respondents had the social capital, connections and financial resources of   their   parents’, earned in migration earlier. Additionally, the pattern of Irish original migration adds interesting questions to the role of formal institutions (offices issuing travel documents, or as in case of Valya, a university) as intermediaries and their role in the chain of supply of semi-regular labour force to Ireland.

4.2.2 Access to labour market: access to fragmented regularity

Respondents in Ireland demonstrated a wide range of situational arrangements related   to   employment.   The   most   “unprotected”   from   a   legal   perspective   was  employment in the domestic sector. Thus, two cleaning ladies among my

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interviewees indicated that they worked informally, without any contract, which reflected both on their job security and on their safety networks. In terms of job security, both women indicated that crisis to some degree affected them, especially by means of reducing working hours (but not the amount of work) and of decreasing the frequency of services requested. However, similar to women in Italy employed in this sector, domestic workers in Ireland did not lose jobs or felt a significant economic blow: being able to tap into the informal networks of their clients, domestic workers maintained their most “households” with just a small reduction of hours.

Despite complete informality of their employment, both cleaning ladies invested time and money to obtain some sort of papers, even though these could guarantee them neither social benefits nor access to geographical mobility. Alla, a 25 year old cleaning lady who spend 7 years in Ireland, said that she paid around 3000 Euro for a Latvian travel document to enter the country, which was then confiscated during her attempt to open a work-permitting document:

They  (officials)  simply  looked  at  it  and  knew  it  was  fake.  They  said  ‘We  take  this  away  from  you and you should just leave.  ‘  When  I  protested  they  said  that  they  can  give  it  back  to  me  but  in  this  case  they  call  the  police  to  investigate  it.  I  didn’t  protest  then.  I  just  left.  So  I  was  left with no documents. I later opened a [work-permitting document] on my Ukrainian name, said that Ukraine was a part of EU because of the football championship in 2011 (laughs). But I cannot use it without [a proper] work   permit.   (…)   I   wish   Ireland would regularize local migrants, those who work here. That would be the right thing to do. This way we could work normally.

When I asked Alla about her feelings after she was dispossessed of her documents she echoed the response of many other respondents: she said she was not afraid of staying without them primarily because she does not think she does anything wrong and secondly, because she believes there is a silent tolerance of people of her status among the Irish authorities:

I am not afraid at all, to tell you the truth. I am not doing anything wrong. I simply came here like the others to earn some money, to see the world, to live like a normal human being. I didn’t  come  to  steal or something like that. Plus they [authorities] know that there are many people like us [irregular]. They would have no money to deport us all.

Alla’s  comment  echoes  Alina’s (33 years old) more dignified account of this situation. Alina has purchased her travel document directly from a Lithuanian citizen who, after trying her luck in Dublin, decided to go back to her home country. To make a bit of extra money, she sold her documents to Alina, whom it gave a chance to try out various levels of semi-skilled jobs. She now works in a coffee shop, where she is known under her Lithuanian name. When I asked Alina, - using the rhetoric of the blaming public discourse, - if she felt she was an illegal immigrant, she replied with dignity:

‘Illegal’   for   whom?   How   do   you   define   that?   Ok,   maybe   I   crossed   the   border   without  permission once, maybe the border guards can consider me illegal, but ever since I am in Ireland I pay all taxes every day. Ok, I do it under a different name but what does that matter? I pay tax from every  cent!  I  don’t  ask  anything  back.  In  this  sense  I  think  I  am  more  legal than those Irish people who spend all their lives on social benefits never contributing a penny.

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While most of my respondents had no contact with people from whom they had purchased their documents, Alina, is an example of the people who are in direct touch  with   the   rightful  owners  of   such  documents.  Alina’s  story  seems  to  be  more  complicated for this connection. She speaks with bitterness of injustice with which she experiences her position:

For all these years I have been paying taxes and contributing to the pension of this person, who is back at home, can come back and claim these contributions any time. I will never claim them. In the meanwhile, I am not getting younger, and it would be nice to deserve a pension for my contributions. However, my main problem is that the person from whom I got [work permitting documents] is constantly informing me she might come back, or that she feels it is not legal what we do and wants to take back the [documents]. You know, it is like sitting on a ticking bomb. If she does that, I need to find another job, move away from my house where I rent a room with 3 other Irish people and start all over again. (Laughs) Because of her sensitive consciousness I am in permanent threat of having to start my life from zero!

A number of my respondents went to a varying degree of effort to secure some form of legal document on their real name. Thus, several respondents managed to open tax numbers and bank accounts on their “Ukrainian identities.” For none of them it proved useful in terms of actual employment; as a 3rd country nationals they would require a valid work permit to have access to regular jobs. Therefore, they proceed to rely on their purchased documents for actual employment and access to social benefits (mostly health care). When asked why did they chose to register as Ukrainian citizens as well, all of my responded vaguely that  “it  was  good  to  have it, just   in   case”,   showing   a   rather   symbolic   meaning   of   this   registration rather than instrumental usage of it.

Migration policies and regimes, make their tremendous impact on migrant’s, putting people in and out of regularity with new regulations or change of policy directions. Migrants often fall behind such changes, thus, not really breaking the law, but rather failing to catch up with the changes in the law. Among my respondents, Roman, 41, who first paid 1700 USD to obtain a seasonal work permit in Ireland and has been working ever since used an opportunity that he saw in the regulations of 2003 that allowed him to use his real name for employment. After third country nationals were requested, on top of contracts to have a valid work permit, his documents became insufficient to guarantee him full regularity. After a while, he applied for amnesty but he has been waiting for final decision for three years by the time of our interview. In the meanwhile, Roman is pressed to take up undocumented jobs to support himself and his one and a half years old daughter. Roman claims he is tired of waiting but cannot give it up now because so much time and energy already has been invested into obtaining regularity. However, he claims that as soon as he gets a reply, whether a negative or a positive one, he will leave Ireland to take a break from this country and his most depressing status in it. If he will get his regularization, he will come back, if not, he said he still would not stay any longer.

4.2.3 Social benefits: balance between paying and using

Only a small number of my respondents indicated that they made use of their obtained documents to access some benefits. Health and education were two points that   came   up   as   a   “benefit”   that   could   be   claimed. Thus, one of my respondents signed up for a course in a local college, using his Latvian ID, a few others indicated that they have used Irish state hospitals in cases of emergencies. In one outstanding

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case, Valya, a respondent of 30 who worked at a managerial position in a supermarket, made full use of health service and free days during her pregnancy time, using her Latvian travel and work-permitting document. However, when the time came to give birth, she switched to another hospital and gave birth to her daughter under her real Ukrainian name. This way, Valya felt she justly used her benefits for which she has paid by contributing tax, however, the last moment manoeuvre was necessary, as she was afraid to be separated from her baby by use of fake identity at birth giving. Valya made use of 6 months-long maternity leave from her work (where a note from doctor about her pregnancy was enough) but receives no child  benefits  as  the  child  was  born  “on  her  Ukrainian”  documents.  

Valya’s  example  is  a  good  illustration  of  migrants constant swinging to and from the zones of regular and irregular, in an attempt to create secure nets of support in daily life. Most of the respondents in my interviews, however, made less complicated choices of how to use medical care. Majority, being rather young and fit, indicated that  they  only  made  use  of  dentists’  services,  for  which  they  always  went  to  private  clinics, in order to obtain the treatment fast. It was a recurring complaint that the Irish public health system is trustworthy but so slow   that   “you   can   die   while  queuing”  (Alla),  and  therefore,  it was better to pay and get your problems treated in a more efficient way. In the case of cleaning ladies, both of whom had doctors as clients, utilized their personal connections with these employers to get medical treatment. In one case, however, the clear cut division between private(paid) and public(free) medical services was still recognized better than the obscure, semi-formal arrangement of Ukrainian medical system:

I could not imagine to live in Ukraine anymore because I am not used to pay for everything even  what   is   free,   like  health,  or  business…I   cannot  any more imagine that even if you call ambulance, you need to pay to get your wound dressed. Or that when I have business someone can come and take it away, or threaten me [like in Ukraine]. I cannot do that anymore. I am not used to this. I need to have my security and stability. (Roman 41)

The last quote is particularly telling that even while many migrants move in grey zones of regularity and are shifting between the wide range of practices located on a regularity-irregularity spectrum majority do strive for more clear and stable position but find no means to obtain it in their migration status. This goes in striking contrast with media portrayal of a migrant who profits from his illegality, and urges for a change of perspective on irregularity offered by Vicki Squire (2011); irregularity is produced  not  by   the  migrant’s   transgression  but  by  migration  policies  of   the   state  that often render  migrants’  presence  irregular.

4.2.4 Navigating liminal identities.

Considering a wide variety and degrees of regularity claimed by my respondents, I made considerable inquiries in the way my interviewees navigated daily life activities and encounters with various circles of people and institutions. While securing documents of a NMS citizen allowed my respondents to access jobs and in some cases health system and education, I wanted to see how my respondents navigate between two identities in their use. While most of my respondents had little contact with Irish or non-immigrant (Ukrainian) community, those who were more integrated revealed a great deal of justification and emotional work that was needed to explain this situation to themselves. Thus, Volodya, (mostly unemployed, 27-year-

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old single young men who enjoyed parties, social networks, and was active in organizing international events for local immigrant youth) did not seem to mind his “double  identity”:

After a while I just started introducing myself with my real name. At first I was worried, tried to memorize the name of the city where I am supposedly from in Latvia. One time even met someone  from  there…  that  was  awkward…  But  then  I  stopped.  Even  when  I  start  a  job  I  say  my real name and usually people  don’t  have  questions.  When you work you kind of try to stay low,   so   that   no   one   sees   you…having half a Dublin of acquaintances, like I have, it’s   a   bit  weird when different people call you a different name in the street or at work...you kind of don’t know if you should look up or not.

While Volodya made a conscious decision to always stand by his real name, double identities caused very real institutional obstacles in personal lives of my other respondents. Thus, Roman and Valya, respondents in my sample, have met and started dating in Ireland. While their relationship was growing serious and they considered marriage they checked their options with the Ukrainian embassy. The Embassy denied them the marriage based on the fact that Roman’s   Ukrainian passport was expired and since he had no valid documents for staying in Ireland, they could not issue him a new passport. The couple then resolved to have a child without marriage, a sensitive issue with the families of both of them. In other case, Alina, who initially migrated with her husband, after four years of migration found their marriage at an end. Her husband consequently went back to Ukraine, while Alina made a decision to stay in Ireland. She laments that she cannot divorce her husband from Ireland, as she has no rights to be there in the first place. The situation became very complicated for her since she cannot claim the division of their property in Ukraine, where without a divorce her husband can make claims on all the property into which they invested earnings from all the years in migration. Similarly, Alina did not find it easy to carry on with her life as a single woman with her  “double identity.” She shares a house with two Irish housemates, who know her, just as her employer, by her Lithuanian name, as her ID was necessary for signing the contract. What Alina thought was just a formality made her go through a serious personal trauma, when she started dating a man she met while being out with her housemates:

We met with my boyfriend when we were out all together with my roommates, in a bar. At first our relationship was not serious at all but after a few months I felt that I am getting too attached  but  I  felt  so  guilty  that  I  haven’t  told  him  my  real  name.  Its  just  so  difficult,  where do you  start  to  say  this?  “Hi,  this  is  not  my  real  name  my  real  name  is  this  but  there  is  nothing  wrong  with  it”?  You  know  what  I  mean?  He  will  think  I  am  some  kind  of  criminal!  How  can  I  explain to him that there is nothing wrong in it? That it is just the way things are done? Finally, the more I was postponing saying it the less possible it becomes to ever mention it.

As these cases show, while migrants can chose to have different types of attitude towards  their  “double   identity”  such  duality  does  have most serious consequences not only on their sense of confidence but on the course of their personal lives, family rights as well as opportunities to overcome their irregularity.

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5. Concluding discussion: linking findings to theoretical perspectives.

Due to its ethnographic focus this study managed to capture the experience of those, who due to various degrees of irregularity of their status remain invisible to other forms of surveying (e.g. Ukrainian live-in domestic workers in Italy or migrants in Ireland  working  under  other’s  names). Dwelling upon the experience of migrants in states of the so-called “liminal legality” (Menjivar 2006) clearly demonstrated that while they all managed to cross the physical borders of their host countries, multiple internal borders continue to define everyday aspect of their lives, especially in connection to access to labour market, social benefits, mobility and family rights. Interviews in this study pointed to fragmentation  of  migrants’   rights depending on the degree of regularity of their statuses.

Exploring   the   effects   of   various   degrees   of   regularity   on   migrants’   inclusion   and  exclusion mostly in the receiving countries, I probed the state’s  “reluctant   reliance  on immigrant labour”   (Van   Hooren 2011), its subtle production of irregularity of migrants through establishing policing and exclusionary migration regimes (Squire 2011, DeGenova 2011). Behind all this, as points out De Genova “large   scale  recruitment of illegalized migrants as legally vulnerable, precarious and thus tractable labour (2011), a facto economic incorporation of irregular immigrant labour   into   the  states’  economies  by  means  of  bureaucratic  procedures  of relaxing or enforcing certain policing practices (Burawoy 1976).

Responding to these differentiated opportunities, migrants choose situational practices, which allow them to circumvent the limitations of status and enter into partial relationship with the state, often based on their own contribution to the labour market and welfare. Such strategies, were conceptualized by some authors as “acts  of  citizenship” (Isin and Nielsen, 2008) render migrants as perfect subjects of neoliberal   citizenship,   i.e.   “self-made”   (we)men   claiming   their   rights   with   the  receiving states on the basis of their contributions to it (Deneva 2013). My interviews confirm this last view particularly strongly through the symbolic approach to regularity: obtaining various forms of long-term residence permits was often seen by my respondents as an ultimate goal of stay in the country, justifying their work under the satisfactory conditions of living and work and family separation. Often respondents did not identify specific goals that obtaining such documents would guarantee them or the prospects it would open, except for a general sense of “securing  a  future.”  

As in the case with regular status, paying formal welfare contributions were often invested with vague and symbolic meaning of serving as an insurance against expulsion from the country. Even without the clear and comprehensive idea of how to claim benefits and if they can be claimed at all, most of my respondents continued to pay the former (both in case of care-workers in Italy or even more so, in Irish cases, where the contributions were paid under a different name) as a way of (a) proving  a  good  will   in   case  of   future  openings   for   legalization,   (b)staying  “legal”   in  their   own   consciousness   or   (c)   as   a   way   to   claim   their   “usefulness”   if   they  would  need to defend their case in case of deportation, etc. The value of legal status, thus, transcend  its  original  form  of  a  “right”  that  is  given  for  free  to  all  those  who  comply  with regulations and norms, and turns into both a social capital and an item worth monetary investments.

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However, fragmentation of migrants’ citizenship is felt not only through advantages (access to labour market in the receiving country, access to health system, education, etc) but through falling through the rights and benefits system available in both Ukraine and the countries of migration destination. This is particularly visible in case of failure to secure and receive pensions or transfer individual occupational skills into meaningful employment from one country to another. These obstacles aggravate the personal price  of  migration,  turning  it  often  into  “lost  years”  in  terms  of occupational trajectories or social benefits. Thus, migrants are often left to themselves to secure their old age, periods of unemployment and health problems. Thus, my research confirms the available statistics that immigrants are significantly less likely to receive welfare benefits than the natives4 (Barrett et al 2011). Welfare contributions, thus, often serve for migrants as symbolic ways of justifying their irregular status (as presence or work in the receiving country), thus setting a non-symbolic, monetary price for an ephemeral hope of justifying their presence in the receiving country.

The patterns of uncertain regularity often lead to mobility obstructions, tremendous complications in family communications and reunifications, and obstacles in personal lives of individuals. The case of generally older female migrants to Italy, despite the elaborate care-chains that allowed to some extent to make up for the absence of mothers and grandmothers from the households, has led to a major national blaming discourse directed against migrating women in Ukraine (Vianello 2013, Fedyuk 2012, Solari 2006, Volodko 2011). Some reflection of this discourse can be  seen  in  the  terms  like  “ATM  mothers”  and  “euro-orphans”  used  in  wide  scope  of  Ukrainian media to reflect perceived corruption of values and morality in families, particularly with female migrants. In case of generally younger migrants to Ireland, my interviews have indicated that using double names or IDs often create situations in which spontaneous relations outside of migrants’ circles become impossible, due to fear to appear criminal and illegal. Double IDs also illuminate the impossibility of divorce or marriage in migration, and can lead to serious complications in case of giving birth and further mobility of the family.

The two distinct migratory regimes of Ireland (work-permit visa) and Italy (regularization of those present in the country’s labour force) provided the most influential impact of the difference in the migratory practices and strategies of my respondents, who have created situational practical solutions in response to the systematic impediments. As I have demonstrated in my study, the cost of these solutions often becomes a heavy burden for individual migrants and their families, while   the   state’s   neglect   of   the   consequences   of   their   policies   further   enhance  dependence and vulnerability of people.

4Barret et al (2011: 6): Building their research on the EU-SILC database for Ireland in 2007, the authors indicate that while about 27.5 % of natives received some payments linked to unemployment or disabilities, only 16.7 % of immigrant did so. The family benefits, however, had only insignificant difference: while 50.1% of natives received some family benefits 54.5 % of immigrants did.

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Annex 1.

Summary table of the differences between migratory flows to Italy and the Republic of Ireland

Countries Italy * data for 2011 Republic of Ireland** data for 2009

Numbers 218.099 residence permit holders 13 thousandwork permit holders Percent of total migrant population:

6 % (5th largest migrant group) insignificant, even for the % among the 3rd country nationals

Average age mean age 42 between 19-40 Gender composition: 20% men , 80% women 55 % men, 45% women

Dominant labor market sectors

* social and family services – approx 70% construction – about 80 %

* commerce household service (cleaning) * construction (for men) farm work * agriculture

National legal framework (in relation to migration)

* work permit are central to the stay permit

work permit are central to the stay permit

* from 2000 – planned flow system or on call system

from 2003-4 end of regulation allowing regularization of the those migrants whose children were born in Ireland

* 2002 and 2009 – amnesties for all migrants who have work contract

***2013: a list of ineligible categories of work for work permits, including most unskilled and semi-skilled occupations

* in 2010 Ukrainians appear for the first time as having a national quota in the regularization process.

***work permits form jobs with 30 000 Euro minimum salary

Historical reference

Ukraine and Italy have no historical connection in migration area. Some authors suggest that Ukrainians started arriving in Naples due to its connections with Odessa port, others, suggest that Ukrainian women followed the tracks of Polish care-workers who started doing domestic work in Italy after 1989 (Vianello 2009).

Ukraine has hardly any significant historical connection to the Republic of Ireland. The first wave of contemporary labor migration started in 1990s. The number of work permits started dropping after 2004 and reached very low point by 2008.

* Vianello F. A. (2009), Migrando sole. Legami transnazionali tra Ucraina e Italia, Milano, Franco Angeli. ** Markov, Ihor, Oksana Ivankova-Stetsyuk and Hryhorij Seleshchuk (2009), Ukrainian Labour Migration in Europe. / Findings of the Complex Research of Ukrainian Labour Immigration Processes.  Edited  by  І.  Markov.  Lviv:  Caritas. *** Citizenship Information Board. http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/migrant_workers/employment_permits/work_permits.html

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Annex 2.Findings summery table

Italy: an aging care- worker

Ireland: liminal identities

- Entering Italy on a tourist visa to other EU states and overstaying the visit.

- 2-5 years in irregular employment, reluctant to change the original employer in hope that the latter might regularize them (agreeing on less money, more work, harsher conditions).

- Women are more likely to get regularized then men, as men work in construction sites and less regular jobs that do not lead to establishing close connection to the employer.

- After regularizing their status for the first time, the need to renew residence permits every 1-3 years for at least 5 years. The renewal of the papers was often delayeddue to some bureaucratic drag, forcing respondents to postpone their visits home or switching to a better job.

- Preferring to stay with employers who can secure renewal of the documents, even in cases of underpayments, extra work and lack of lawful free time.

- Due to personalized nature of care work most respondents preferred not to solve tax, regularization or payment contested issues via legal means, but through negotiation and avoiding conflict.

- Often prefer to use health services during their visits to Ukraine, even if entitled to health benefits in Italy. Due to the nature of care work many have little or no opportunity to leave the person in care to attend hospitals or schedule long-awaited appointments. In Ukraine, they rely on informally paid services that are quick and personalized.

- No bilateral agreements exist between Ukraine and Italy concerning pension systems; a care-giver is eligible for a pension payment in Italy after 15 years of regularized work, which in case of Ukrainian migrants has 2 problems: (1) many migrants spend several years in   irregular   employment,  which   are   “lost   years”   form  the social benefits perspective, (2) due to the particular demographic profile of Ukrainian care-givers in Italy (i.e. over 40) many quit due to age and hardships of the occupation before they reach the required 15 years of regularized occupation.

- Entering Republic of Ireland either on a British work permit (through Northern Ireland), Irish work permit (in early 2000s) or on an ID from a NMS.

- In order to access employment – purchase of work-permitting and travel documents from NMS nationals.

- Access to health benefits on the basis  of  “other  identity”.

- Feeling of guilt and fear for using double identities.

- No prospects for transferring earned benefits to their name, to Ukraine or to regularizing their status at all.

- Limited mobility (within the EU) and no mobility outside of the EU.

- Effect on family rights and personal lives - no possibility for marriage, divorce, acknowledging parenthood. Limited possibilities for establishing trusting relations with Irish or other nationals colleagues, partners, neighbours.

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Annex 3. Respondents in the Republic of Ireland*

Name Age Family status

Since when in Ireland Regularity status Education / job history in Ukraine Work in Ireland

Ksenija 52 divorced 2000

Originally had a work permit issued in Kyiv (though the permit was valid upon arrival no promised jobs were provided though). After 4 years ran out of visa and permit. Has no documents.

Manager at a plant until 1990, after that - work in a number of private companies, after that- unemployment and occasional work at a local market. Cleaning lady.

Volodya 27 single 2006

Latvian travel and work-permitting document. Has a tax number on his real name but cannot use it as he has no work permit.

High school in Ukraine, some trainings in Ireland. Unemployed.

Alina 32 married, separated 2006

Lithuanian travel and work-permitting document.

MA in linguistics, worked for several years as a teaching assistant in a university.

Coffee-shop, salesperson, bar-tender.

Oleh 42 married, separated 2006 Polish travel documents.

High school, many years of migration experience to Poland.

Returned to Ukraine, unemployed.

Olexiy 41 married, 2 children 2008 High-skilled employee. MA degree. Postdoctoral position.

Alla 25

Unmarried, has a Ukrainian partner 2006

Latvian travel documents. Has a tax number on her name but does not use it because she has no work permit. No other documents. High-school in Ukraine. Cleaning lady.

Petro 25

Unmarried, has a Ukrainian partner 2006

Latvian travel documents (confiscated), Ukrainian passport, bank account on Ukrainian name, new Latvian travel and work-permitting documents, Ukrainian tax number (doesn't use) High-school in Ukraine.

These days - paints the walls.

Sasha 30 single 2011

Entered on a tourist visa. Now has official work permit for which he paid his employer.

College degree in Finances. Worked as a night guard. Gardener.

Olexandr 27 married, 2 children 2003

Entered due to reunification of the family, then changed to student status, then to work permit, after 6 years to permanent residence, which he renewed once a year and now 3 times per year.

School in Ukraine and lyceum in Moldova. Studied in Limerick computer science.

Worked in IT multi-national corporation, had a private translation business and was unemployed for half a year.

Roman 41

unmarried, has a child 2003

Entered on a seasonal work permit for Ireland. Has his own tax number but no work permit. Applied for amnesty, waiting for a decision for more than 3 years.

College degree, worked as a driver. After 1991 has migration experience to Poland.

Worked in agriculture, construction, even hired his 2 helpers for a while. After crisis went back to agriculture, and now delivers leaflets and advertising.

Valya 30

unmarried, has a child 2007

Entered on a seasonal work visa for the UK (after a year in UK) through Belfast. Soon after bought a Latvian travel and work-permitting documents. University degree. Lawyer.

Manager at a supermarket.

Tanya 44 divorced, has a child 2001

Entered on a work permit. Now has Irish citizenship.

Hairdresser vocational training. Taught in her vocational school after graduation.

Hairdresser salon manger.

* all names have been changed to maintain anonymity. “Travel and work-permitting documents”, as well as “tax number” is used instead of the specific names of the documents to protect the respondents by concealing their specific practices.

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Annex 4.

Respondents Respondents in Italy

Name * Age Family status Since when in Italy Regularity status Education / job history

in Ukraine Work in Italy

Oksana 56

Married in Ukraine, 3 children (all married), 4 grandchildren 15 years

Permanent residence

Vocational school (food and catering). All life worked in her trade (until 1996).

Geriatric care (live-in worker), cleaning houses

Hanna 70

Married in Ukraine, 2 children, grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren 7 years Illegal

Vocational training, (book-keeper). Worked as a head of a storage of a small alcohol production line. Retired due to reaching retirement age in 1997.

Geriatric care (domestic live-in worker)

Katia 52

Widow, 2 adult sons (one of whom is special needs) 10 years

Entrepreneurial license

*Education level unknown. Worked for 10 years as a worker in a coalmine. Later 15 years as an engineer and a head of a brigade in the same mine.

Owns her private cleaning company, provides cleaning services for pools, offices, enterprises

Iryna 55

Married in Ukraine, adult daughter, 2 grandchildren 12

Permanent residence

University degree in engineering. For 19 years worked as a master technician in a plant.

Geriatric care (live-in worker), cleaning houses

Vasyl 50 Married in Ukraine, 4 children, 4 years Illegal

University degree. Priest of UGCC. Unemployed

Zhanna 47

Separated from her husband, 3 adult children 7 years Romanian passport

University degree, economist. 12 years of work experience in a construction company, (book-keeper).

Geriatric care (domestic live-in worker)

Vira 33

Got married to an Englishman, but got separated 2 years ago. Keeps no contact with him. 7 years

Long-term residence permit

*Education unknown. Work experience- none Baby-sitter, cleaning

Lilia 39 Separated, has 20-year old daughter 8 years

Entrepreneurial license

Vocational training (geodesist). Work experience- none. Owns a clothes shop

Veronica 60 Widow, has 2 adult married sons 5 years

Long-term residence

Vocational training school. For 8 years worked in a factory, later in a laundry

Geriatric care (domestic live-in worker)

Ljuba 55 Widow, 2 children and 3 grandchildren 12 years Long-term residence

Vocational training school (cook). Never worked in her field. Worked periodically as a hospital nurse.

Geriatric care (domestic live-in worker)

* all names have been changed to maintain anonymity