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From Coping Strategies to Tactics: London's Low‐Pay Economy and Migrant Labour
Author(s) -
Datta Kavita,
McIlwaine Cathy,
Evans Yara,
Herbert Joanna,
May Jon,
Wills Jane
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00620.x
Subject(s) - migrant workers , coping (psychology) , ethnic group , labour economics , face (sociological concept) , sociology , political science , economics , economic growth , social science , psychology , psychiatry , anthropology
This article examines the means by which low‐paid migrant workers survive in a rapidly changing and increasingly unequal labour market. In a departure from the coping strategies literature, it is argued that the difficulties migrant workers face in the London labour market reduces their ability to ‘strategize’. Instead, workers adopt a range of ‘tactics’ that enable them to ‘get by’, if only just, on a day‐to‐day basis. The article explores these tactics with reference to the connections between different workers’ experiences of the workplace, home and community, and demonstrates the role of national, ethnic and gender relations in shaping migrant workers’ experiences of the London labour market and of the city more widely.