Spain
The labour market of migrant women in Spain is often defined as precarious. Newly arrived migrant women are, in most cases, forced into domestic service, as a temporary insertion stage until they find a more stable job. Moreover, it is worth noting that in Spain, the migration model has developed in response to care demands. Administrative legalisation has favoured women performing this type of work [1]. For example, the 2015 data of the Woman Immigrant Survey [2] showed that in Spain, 58% of the jobs of non-EU immigrant women concentrated around three occupations: domestic and care work, cleaning and waitressing.
Although channels have been established to validate the qualifications of foreigners, obstacles remain highly conspicuous. In Spain, the requirements for the recognition of foreign university degrees are regulated by "Royal Decree 967/2014, of 21 November, which establishes the requirements and procedure for the recognition and declaration of equivalence of degrees and official university academic levels and for the validation of foreign higher education studies, as well as the procedure for determining the correspondence with levels of the Spanish framework of higher education qualifications for the official degrees of Architect, Engineer, Bachelor, Technical Architect, Technical Engineer and Graduate". The average processing time is two and a half years. As a result, the Ministry of Universities committed itself, in 2021, to reduce these deadlines to less than six months [3]. Many women either desist from the process of validating their degrees or obtain it only after many years. Their difficulties include, among others: the high cost of validation; the need to take degrees that they had already completed and that are not recognised in Spain; the tuition fees they have to pay because they do not have Spanish citizenship; and the need to present all the documentation from their countries of origin and the amount of bureaucracy this entails [4].
In addition to these obstacles, migrant women generally face a number of labour insertion hurdles in Spain such as: lack of knowledge of language and customs; difficulties of access to legal advice, lack of awareness of entrepreneurship options, lack of support networks and / or obstacles to the reconciliation between personal life, the care of their children (in its case) and work. Improvement proposals thus include: the promotion of Spanish language and culture courses; collaborations with the business world (different types of agreements that favour the incorporation of migrant women in companies); encouraging the provision of comprehensive guidance services (legal accompaniment, employment advice and entrepreneurship); and improving the procedure for the recognition of qualifications and services to support their work-life balance [5].
An example of this is the Clara Programme of the Spanish Government’s Women\'s Institute. The programme seeks to increase the employability of women at risk or exclusion such as migrant women, and who present special labour insertion difficulties, by improving their employment qualifications (https://www.inmujeres.gob.es/areasTematicas/AreaProgInsercionSociolaboral/Clara.htm)
To conclude, we invite students to consult the success story entitled "A history of integration through trust in entities and authorities", which can be accessed at https://viw.pixel-online.org/case_view.php?id=NjA=. This case shows the difficulties faced by an immigrant woman to access the labour market in Spain, including the obstacles to the validation of her degree and the key role of the advice and accompaniment she receives from institutions.
References
[1] Díaz Gorfinkiel, M. & martínez-buján, R. “Mujeres migrantes y trabajos de cuidados: transformaciones del sector doméstico en España”, Panorama Social, (27), Madrid, Funcas, 2018, 105-118.
[2] Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM) e Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones (Universidad P. Comillas). “la situación laboral de la mujer inmigrante en España. Análisis y proposiciones para la igualdad de trato y la lucha contra la discriminación, Madrid, OIM, 2015.
[3] La Vanguardia. “España se conjura para agilizar la homologación de títulos extranjeros”. 2021. https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20210324/6605273/inmigrantes-homologar-titulo-universitario-seis-meses.html
[4] Federación de Mujeres Progresistas. “Mujer inmigrante y empleo de hogar: situación actual, retos y propuestas”. Madrid, 2020.
[5] Ayuntamiento de Málaga. “Estudio sobre la situación laboral y social de la mujer inmigrante en Málaga”. Málaga, 2016.
Online Resources
Migrant women in Spain: bastions of resistance after the economic crisis https://doi.org/10.24241/AnuarioCIDOBInmi.2018.130
This article reflects the situation of women over the last decade, during Spain’s economic crisis.
Immigrant women entrepreneurs in rural areas. A factor of economic and social sustainability of the rural areas of the Valencian Community
https://doi.org/10.4422/ager.2013.05
This study sheds light on various entrepreneurial initiatives of immigrant women in the rural environment of the Valencian Community (Spain), as well as their role in sustaining the rural socioeconomic structure.
Wings European Project. The Erasmus+ project works on the social and economic qualification of immigrant women, providing these women with integration tools through quality learning opportunities and favouring the labour integration of migrant women https://wingsprojecterasmus.eu/