4.2 Non-communitarian immigrant women in the work market in spain  (Page 12/18)

However, in agreement with Christine Catarino and Laura Oso (2000), it must also be indicated that the domestic service is the occupation with more advantages for immigrant women, from the monetary accumulation point of view, since those who work as interns have insured the lodging and the maintenance, can maximize their savings capacity, send remittances to the family, and return to their countries of origin with a greater autonomy (own business, house purchase, etc.). That way, the over-qualification and the loss of self-esteem are compensated in terms of greater income, mainly when the idea of short term return remains, which is translated in an improvement in the woman’s position in the family and community of origin, thanks to gained social prestige through the emigration. In addition to the monetary accumulation, the domestic service favors the arrival and insertion to the welcoming society of foreigners, so that the immigrant women have no problem finding a job.

The Spanish migratory policy promotes the labor concentration of immigrant women in the domestic service. The organized channels of migration anticipated by the state, respond to computable necessities to the formal work market, which excludes those activities that are mainly done by women, characterized by the regularization (domestic service) or not being considered a proper job (prostitution). In agreement with Mestre (2003), a model that grants rights to foreigners based on the existence of a contract of work in the formal market (not of labor relation), excludes women even more. Although the policy of contingents has included the domestic service as an activity in which the situation could be regularized, the women who were already working here have benefited from the permissions. Nevertheless, this measurement in no case has served to regulate an ordered entrance. The labor situation of the immigrant woman does not allow her to benefit from immigration policies that try to organize migrations on the basis of possession of a contract of work granted prior to arrival.

The increasing presence of women in irregular situations explains that the migratory networks play a key role for women, more than men, at the hour of coming to Spain and finding a job. The networks with feminine predominance, with base in the country of origin or of destination and integrated by conational women, facilitate information, labor contacts, and even the average materials to emigrate. Immigrant women with greater dwell time in Spain know the operations of the Spanish work market. Not to mention the employers’ networks, integrated by people of the welcoming society, basically women, who recruit immigrant women as domestic employees and who favor the migration of women towards Spain. Finally, the networks that hiring families and the different immigrant communities through parishes and religious orders that also act as employing agencies (Colectivo Ioé 1998:29; Gualda, Ruiz 2004).

The construction of citizenship in labor terms is found in the base of the immigration system in Europe, and entails negative effects for women. Since the social rights in the State of the Spanish well-being are associated to occupational categories, except in the case of health and education, the participation in the formal work market constitutes one of the main routes of access to the social resources, benefits, and programs that are directed to the workers and their families. The over-representation of the immigrant woman in poorly regulated activities (domestic service, for example, is not quoted in unemployment) and in the submerged economy, has a smaller economic independence as consequence and an unequal access to other resources (Mestre 2003). It is certain that working immigrant men are also imagined in the submerged economy; but they are not located in the same type of informal economy. While men irregularly do works that can be formal (construction, agriculture, etc.); women, however, are used irregularly in unregularized works (domestic service, prostitution, etc.) (Mestre 2003). Really, not only are formal markets segmented by gender; informal markets are too.