When the Export of Social Problems is No Longer Possible: Immigration Policies and Unemployment in Switzerland

17 Pages Posted: 19 Dec 2006 Last revised: 27 Feb 2011

See all articles by Alexandre Afonso

Alexandre Afonso

King's College London - Department of Political Economy; Leiden University

Date Written: February 24, 2011

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century, Switzerland has been one of the OECD countries with the highest proportion of immigrants in its population. The aim of this article is to show how institutional factors have shaped the opportunities for change in immigration and immigrant-employment-related policies there since the 1990s. Whereas unemployment had remained low in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a marked increase at the beginning of the 1990s. Existing migration policies were considered a central cause of this increase, since the great majority of foreigners who had come and settled in Switzerland in the periods of economic expansion were low-skilled, and were now over-represented among the unemployed. The reforms undertaken in the field of immigration and integration policy to respond to these new problems have been determined by specific institutional factors: direct democracy, a defensive migration regime, the development of immigrant rights and the weak autonomy of the central state. These factors account to a large extent for the limited scope and specific pathways of policy reforms in these two domains.

Keywords: Immigration, Policy, Unemployment, Institutions, Switzerland

JEL Classification: J61, F22, J65, J68

Suggested Citation

Afonso, Alexandre and Afonso, Alexandre, When the Export of Social Problems is No Longer Possible: Immigration Policies and Unemployment in Switzerland (February 24, 2011). Social Policy and Administration, Vol. 39, No. 6, pp. 653-668, 2005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=952217

Alexandre Afonso (Contact Author)

Leiden University ( email )

Postbus 9500
Leiden, Zuid Holland 2300 RA
Netherlands

King's College London - Department of Political Economy

Strand Campus
Aldych 46
London, WCB 4LL
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/politicaleconomy/index.aspx

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