NaDiRa short study: Employment, gender and racism

Project team:

• Katrin Menke
• Cora Wernerus

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Project description: 

The research project sheds light on the experiences of gender-specific racism that refugee Muslim and Black women have in the German labour market. Furthermore, we were interested in the extent to which labour market and asylum policies contribute to the inclusion or exclusion of women affected by racism.

Results:

Refugee women who make use of employment services encounter various local actors, such as the public labour market administration, providers of labour market measures and foreigners authorities. These actors address them in a sexist and racialising way. The women are constructed as dependent in the context of normative family relationships. Muslim women are also confronted with religious culturalisations, which are particularly attached to the headscarf. As a result, refugee Muslim women and women of colour are either forced into the private sphere or activated for precarious gainful employment that is devalued as female. Sanctioning mechanisms, an instrument of the activating welfare state, play a not insignificant role in this. Racism does not appear as individual misconduct in labour market mediation, but as a structurally applied official practice.

Surprising insights:

In German-language research on racism, an explicit and systematic gender perspective has been missing so far. Such a perspective, however, is necessary in order to be able to research racism specifically and context-dependently and to grasp it appropriately.

Furthermore, it became apparent that not only the labour market, but also (social) state authorities and civil society produce racist inequalities. This insight has so far hardly been disseminated in social policy research, which considers the welfare state primarily as a compensation for social inequalities caused by competition or the labour market.

Significance for practice:

Empirically based knowledge about how racism affects the labour market participation of Black women and women of colour can be used to derive and implement recommendations for action for the labour administration. In addition, political actors and decision-makers in ministries, parliaments and political parties can be sensitised to the fact that the inclusion and exclusion of people in the labour market is linked to gender-specific racist actions in the labour administration. Finally, civil society associations and migrant self-organisations can use our research results.

Short studies in preparation of the Racism Monitor:

In order to prepare a comprehensive racism monitor, DeZIM called on researchers from the DeZIM research community in 2020 to develop innovative study ideas. These should extend existing research projects, pursue new and innovative approaches or build an infrastructure to research racism. By 2021, more than 120 researchers at the six locations of the DeZIM research community had conducted a total of 34 short studies. These are divided into six thematic priorities:

• Health system
• Education system and labour market
• Institutional racism
• Dealing with experiences of racism
• Participation and the media
• Racist ideologies and attitudes