Migration and Labour Market Integration

Third-cycle level | 7.5 credits | Course code: SC30022
HT 2025
Study period: 2025-10-01 - 2025-11-03
LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION: The course is given in English
Application period: 2025-04-04 - 2025-08-11
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Course description

This course is about migration, work and labour market integration. The search for higher wages and better employment opportunities form important motivations for migration, and migrant labour plays a key role in many economies and societies. While migrants tend to be disproportionately exposed to exploitation and poor working conditions, it is important to recognise the diverse ways in which migrants are incorporated into labour markets, ranging from low-paid jobs and precarious positions to well-paid and highly qualified employment. The course will look at different patterns of migrants’ employment incorporation and attend to the factors that shape them. This includes social divisions and inequalities linked to gender, class and processes of racialisation, as well as the role played by migration policies in shaping employment opportunities, conditions and rights for different groups and categories of migrants. Furthermore, migrants’ employment integration needs to be understood in the context of how labour markets transform. Students will engage with concepts such as flexibilisation, precariarisation, upskilling, deskilling and polarisation, and gain an understanding of how migration processes and labour market processes intersect. The course will address these issues at different levels: at the labour market and broader societal level, the organizational level, and at the micro-level, by considering migrants’ experiences and how they negotiate the barriers and opportunities they encounter.

Requirements and Selection

Entry requirements

Persons admitted to doctoral/PhD studies in social sciences or other corresponding areas at the University of Gothenburg or another university are eligible to apply for the course. 
 

Selection

Doctoral students enrolled at the Department of Sociology and Work science at the University of Gothenburg and at REMESO at the Linköping University.

Doctoral students enrolled at the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Gothenburg

Doctoral students enrolled at another faculty at the University of Gothenburg or another university in Sweden

Doctoral students enrolled at a university outside Sweden

Educational partnership

The Swedish Research Council's Research school is a collaboration between the University of Gothenburg and Linköping University.

Link to website

https://www.gu.se/en/study-gothenburg/migration-and-labour-market-integration

Course syllabus

SC30022

Reading and reference list

Reading and reference list for the course

Department

Department of Sociology and Work Science

Subject

Social Science

Type of course

Subject area course

Research School/Graduate School

Graduate School in Migration and Integration

Keywords

migration, labour market integration, migrant labour, working conditions

CONTACTIréne Carlensberg

irene.carlensberg@gu.se