History of the Arab and Magreb migrations towards Europe

##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##

##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##

Published 23-11-2011
Bichara Khader

Abstract

The Arabs migrated in three directions in the last one hundred years; towards Latin America where some 3 millions Arabs live in harmony with the receiving societies and are totally integrated, towards the Arab Gulf in search for jobs since the 1950's, and finally towards Europe. This article deals mainly with the third wave of Arab external migration and covers the period from the 1950 until 2005. The article highlights two stages in the Maghreb migration towards Europe: the first extends from 1950 until 1973 and is characterized by a wave of work migration whereby the migrants are usually young, not very litterate, and performing jobs in European Economy considered to be difficult, dirty and dangerous.These migrants used to tranfer 75% of their salaries to their families in their home countries and had not the project of settling definitively in the receiving countries.After the closure of European countries to new regular migration, two trends have been witnessed; family reunion (which implied feminization, rejuvenation, visibilization and the surge of xenophobic attitudes in the receiving societies) and continuation of migration but this time in irregular forms. Spain and Italy have been severely exposed to such an uncontrolled and unchecked flows of irregular migration. European policies have been, in general, inadequate to mitigate this trend, which means that underdevelopment in the Maghreb and in Africa is having a negative boomerang on European countries themselves.»

Abstract 5028 | PDF (Español) Downloads 5571

##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##

Section
Articles