PERG, EDUWORKS & SPP present
The Crisis as an Opportunity? Policy Responses and Implications for Immigration, Education and Skills
Lucie Cerna, OECD
Host: Martin Kahanec (CEU) // Chair: Michael Dorsch (CEU)
The recent economic crisis provided a shock to the system, and led governments to scramble for solutions to problems of falling economic growth, high unemployment and weak job creation. In the field of migration, calls for protection of native workers became louder and many European governments responded by restricting immigration policies, even towards the highly-skilled. Yet European countries have faced different challenges and thus the cross-national variation in the demand for different policy responses is remarkable. Some countries used the crisis as an opportunity to restrict immigration policies, while others took advantage of the crisis for further liberalisation. The talk will explore different reasons for this variation, ranging from socio-economic conditions to the role of labour market institutions and political actors. It will survey a number of European countries and examines the changing conditions as well as shifting coalitions between mobilised stakeholders to explain policy changes. In addition, an updated 2007 index on states’ openness to high-skilled immigrants will be presented in order to measure policy change over time. While focusing on policy responses in (high-skilled) immigration, the talk will also discuss some implications for education policy, and the differences between the two policy areas.
About the lecturer
Dr. Lucie Cerna is an Analyst at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and a Research Associate at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at Oxford. She was previously a Lecturer in Politics, Merton College Oxford, and an Assistant Professor in Global Challenges (Political Economy) at Leiden University, Netherlands. Lucie holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford, where she focused on the governance of high-skilled migration policies. In addition to her academic work, Lucie has been consultant for a number of international organisations, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).