Analyzing Migration Management: On the Recruitment of Nurses to Germany

Jan Kordes, Robert Pütz and Sigrid Rand
Additional contact information
Jan Kordes: Department of Human Geography, Goethe University, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, D-60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Robert Pütz: Department of Human Geography, Goethe University, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, D-60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Sigrid Rand: Department of Human Geography, Goethe University, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, D-60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Social Sciences, 2020, vol. 9, issue 2, 1-17

Abstract: In Germany, a grave labor shortage in the nursing and elderly care sectors has prompted the response of recruiting skilled nursing staff from abroad in recent years. This article analyzes these recruitment practices as forms of “migration management”: German migration policy has changed according to this paradigm to attempt utilitarian control over migration processes and mediate between labor market concerns on the one hand and isolationist, politico-cultural seclusion on the other. Based on original research through interviews and document analysis, we identify four relevant levels of analysis in researching migration management in the context of the recruitment of skilled nurses: (1) Definition of problem areas: How is migration programmatically legitimized as a solution to social problems? (2) Categorization of migration: How are migration processes classified? (3) Change in statehood: How are sites and actors of migration control being privatized and diversified? (4) Technologies: By means of which procedures, legal foundations and political instruments does migration management take place in the everyday? We believe that taking these four foci as points of departure would be beneficial for further inquiries in critical migration research.

Keywords: care; migration; migration management; nursing; recruitment; globalized labor markets; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/2/19/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/2/19/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:9:y:2020:i:2:p:19-:d:321263

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().