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Migrants and Minorities in European Cities: The Interaction of Economic, Spatial and Social Factors in Generating Pathways to Social Exclusion

Objective

This Thematic Network involves research teams from eight states of the European Union (five from Northem Europe, three from Southern Europe) in order to help testing a theoritical model fo the explanation of social exclusion as it affects some of the most vulnerable groups in European member states.

The model proposes that social exclusion is a function of the interaction between:

* The match between skills and opportunities for employment.
* The physical access to those opportunities.
* The social barriers to entry into employment.

The argument is that social exclusion can be viewed as a product of what jobs are available, where they are located and how they are filled. These are considered as independent processes, but ones which interact in generating the balance of constraint and opportunity on which social exclusion ultimately depends.

The thematic network aims at:

* Idendifying forms of social exclusion and the pathways through which they are generated for migrants and minorities in different types of cities.
* Assessing the effects of economic changes and national and city-level on generating pathways to social exclusion.
* Considering the reasons for variation in the employment fortunes of different groups of migrants and ethnnic minorities when compared with the indigenous population.
* Analysing the neighbourhood effects on social exclusion in different urban contexts when compared with household and individual sectors to build a repertoire of social indicators for both forms of social exclusion and for the pathways through which they are reached.

Five "state-of-the-art" meetings will be organised and will generate a comparative volume related to eight states of the European Union (five from Northern Europe, three from Southern Europe), on the following thems:

1. Economic restructuring, industrial change and migrants in cities - Utrecht, October 1996 (NL, UK)
2. The dynamics of social integration and social exclusion at the neighbourhood level - Paris - March 1997 (F, BE)
3. Comparative research on migrants in cities: data availability and data needs - Milano - october 1997 (IT)
4. Migrants, minorities and the reform of the welfare state - Köln-March 1998 (DE)
5. Migrants in cities: new directions in economic and social policy - Barcelona - October 1998 (ES,P)

A book providing the synthesis of all the arguments will be published at the end of the project.

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

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Coordinator

University of Utrecht
EU contribution
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Address
Heidelberglaan 2
3508 Utrecht
Netherlands

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Total cost
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Participants (7)