What is the Worth of Highly Educated Female Migrants in the Labor Market of Barcelona?

Abstract

Education is considered as one of the basic tools for migrants to be integrated in the labor market of host country. But does this theory applies equally for female migrants too? The biggest immigrant population is Spain comes from Latin America. They are almost equal in male and female ratio according to census data. But there is a common phenomenon about integration of these Latin American female migrant. Mostly, they are found in 'pink collar' job in labor market which does not need higher education. So, what happens to those women who are highly educated and have aspiration to be integrated in white collar job in Spain? Present data shows that there is an increase of educated migrants among women but why the number of women in labor market in those jobs is not increasing simultaneously? This paper aims to investigate why there are less representation of Latin American female migrants in 'white collar' job in Spain. This paper examines the thorny issue of female migrant integration with a qualitative method by interviewing 16 Latin American female migrants who are highly educated and currently working in Barcelona in a "white collar" job. To do further investigation and understand their challenges from the aspect of race and feminism, there was controlled ratio of participants who has darker...