Dr Sara Reis is Head of Research and Policy at the Women's Budget Group. In this episode she shares the findings of the group's research into the economic position of migrant women in the UK. We speak about how UK immigration policies impact on the economic opportunities of migrant women, and the impact of both COVID-19 and Brexit and the already vulnerable position of many migrants in the UK. Take a look at the Migrant Women and the Economy report to find out more: https://wbg.org.uk/analysis/latest-report-migrant-women-and-the-economy/ And watch the report launch webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRkYtLtmCoY I also talk about the Homebrewed Feminism podcast, which you can find at homebrewedfeminism.com
00:39 Before we start on the interview, a shoutout to the Homebrewed Feminism podcast. You can find the podcast at homebrewedfeminism.com and listen to their discussion of our interview with Marion Sharples in Episode 6: Equity > Equality.
01:07 The Women's Budget Group report on Migrant Women and the Economy. Read the full report here.
02:31 Immigration in the UK and the "hostile environment"
10:01 How men's and women's pattern of migration vary
13:27 Impacts on the economic position of migrant women
19:59 Challenges in accessing financial services
22:10 The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on migrant women
30:32 And what about when lockdown rules are relaxed?
35:53 The rights of migrants and the Black Lives Matter movement
39:38 The proposals of the Women's Budget Group to improve the economic position of migrants in the UK
46:00 Migrant women have faced the worst of our collective crises in 2020. Here, I also talk about the Women's Budget Group's webinar which brought together many organizations supporting migrant women, including Southhall Black Sisters, the Latin American Women's Rights Service, Women for Refugee Women and Foleshill Women's Training. You can find the webinar here.
Alice Merry (00:04):
Welcome to the podcast that takes a feminist look at the world of money. My name is Alice Merry and this is The Feminist Finance Podcast. Before we get into this episode, I wanted to share with you a fab new podcast which has just finished its first season. It's called Homebrewed Feminism. The hosts, Amanda and Becki, discuss clips from the best of feminist podcasting, as well as enjoying and discussing craft beer. It's really insightful and it's really funny, and we definitely approve of their taste in podcasts.
Alice Merry (00:39):
They had one episode on finance in this series, I'll put a link in the show notes, where they talked about a clip from my interview in episode 11, with Marion Sharples, from the Women's Budget Group. And they also talk about a clip from the brilliant Fairer Cents podcast. Big thanks to Becki and Amanda for featuring the podcast and I definitely recommend the first series of Homebrewed feminism, for a good binge listen, over the festive period.
Alice Merry (01:07):
And this is actually a nice link to today's episode because, in this episode, we are back with the brilliant Women's Budget Group. In episode 11, I had a really interesting conversation with Marion Sharples about the group's proposals for a gender-equal economy. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Sara Reis, who is head of research and policy at the Women's Budget Group. And we talk about a piece of research that she led, which looked into the economic position of migrant women.
Alice Merry (01:34):
This piece of research was begun before COVID-19 was on our radars, but it was launched earlier this year in the middle of the pandemic and the lockdown, and this made its findings even starker. The interview was recorded several months ago, as the initial lockdown in the UK started to ease. But it feels particularly topical, to be sharing this episode now, as we not only have the ongoing COVID crisis but, in the UK, this is about to combine with another crisis, as the Brexit transition period comes to an end and the UK fully leaves the EU in January. This is another issue with enormous implications for migrant workers in the UK, as Sara explains in the episode.
Alice Merry (02:21):
Hi, Sara, welcome to The Feminist Finance Podcast, it's a pleasure to have you here today, thank you for joining us.
Dr Sara Reis (02:28):
Hello Alice, thank you for inviting me.
Alice Merry (02:31):
You work for the Women's Budget Group, which has recently released a report called Migrant Women and the Economy. And this report looks at the impact of the UK immigration system on the economic position of migrant women. And before we get stuck into the economic position of migrant women, I wanted to talk with you a little bit about the immigration approach in the UK, in general. Because the UK has been perceived as a country which has become increasingly hostile to migrants, in recent years, with Brexit, with recorded increases in racist and anti-migrant hate crime, and a set of immigration policies that has come to be known as the hostile environment. It'd be great to hear, from your perspective, about how this immigration landscape in the UK is looking at the moment.
Dr Sara Reis (03:18):
Of course. At the moment, in the UK, we have, in fact, two immigration systems. We have the freedom of movement, which applies to European Union citizens. And so this means that EU citizens have, still currently, favorable conditions when it comes to their ability to come to the UK, to settle and to access things like jobs and education, certain benefits as well and certain public services. And then we also have another immigration system which is effectively immigration controls for all other migrants. And within this immigration control, we have different types of visas that are awarded depending on the reasons for people to migrate. And this is a system that effectively favors workers, so it favors people on worker visas and it awards the visas to workers who are higher-paid, who are highly skilled in particular sectors, and it's also a system that favors, very much, self-sufficiency.
Dr Sara Reis (04:44):
This idea of self-sufficiency is reflected through this privileging of high-paid jobs, you only get a worker visa if you can get a job in a certain sector, above a certain salary. And it's manifested also in other things like what we call the no recourse to public funds policy, which means, effectively, that migrants on all kinds of visas are barred from accessing most benefits and many public services, things like social housing, they cannot access, or homelessness support.
Dr Sara Reis (05:26):
And it's also a system, this idea of self-sufficiency is also reflected in one of the most minimum income requirements, to bring family over. For a British citizen or for a settled person who is in the UK, and they want to bring their spouse over to them or their children, their parents, for instance, they need to earn above around £18,000 a year to be able to do that, and have some savings as well. All this from that idea that, migrants should not be a burden on the state and so the state wants to make sure that, British citizens or settled persons who want to bring their family over can effectively provide for them.
Dr Sara Reis (06:19):
Now, there are multiple contradictions within the system. Things like, at the moment, asylum seekers. People who seek asylum in the UK, while they are waiting for the decision, they cannot work. That is a contradiction to this idea of self-sufficiency and favoring workers, but self-sufficiency and privileging workers, migrant workers, is two main components of the system, I'd say.
Dr Sara Reis (06:54):
And then we have what has been deemed as the hostile environment. This was actually an expression coined by Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary. Her express aim was to make the UK a hostile environment to people who were undocumented, migrants who were undocumented, she wanted to make their lives very hard to stay in the UK. And so this goal then was translated into a set of rules and a set of ideas, that actively makes life hard for people with this insecure status. It makes life harder for migrants to renew their visas, to continue to stay in the UK, at the moment, the route to settlement, until you get to a point where you are allowed to stay in the country indefinitely.
Dr Sara Reis (07:55):
The system of renewing visas, that would be two and a half years, can cost you thousands of pounds and then you're also charged to access the NHS, the National Health Service. Landlords, employers but also the police and the health service, all of these actors are effectively working as border patrol because the Home Office forces them to report and to monitor the status, the immigration status, of people who they are offering a service to or people who are reporting to them, in the case of the police, et cetera. All of these different policy, that we often call the hostile environment, are also a big, big part of the immigration system since the last decade, at least.
Dr Sara Reis (08:50):
And so this is something that we anticipate will continue and potentially be exacerbated, because it will be expanded to a larger pool of migrants, once the freedom of movement for EU citizens ends at the end of this year. When the transition period of Brexit ends and the UK is no longer attached to EU regulations and EU law, the new system, the immigration control will be extended to all migrants. There will be a salary threshold that will apply to everyone and the plans of the government, at the moment, are for a system point that will, again, privilege sectors like engineering, STEM, to the detriment of others like social care which has very obvious gender impacts because the former are male-dominated sectors, much better paid. And social care, which is a crucial sector in society, is very much a female-dominated in its workforce.
Alice Merry (10:01):
We have this very complex immigration landscape, based around concepts of favoring workers, in theory at least, favoring self-sufficiency. And in the paper, you mentioned that one of the reasons that this has a different impact on men and women is that, men and women have different patterns of migration in the first place. Could you tell us a bit more about these different patterns of men and women's migration, into the UK?
Dr Sara Reis (10:31):
Yeah, men and women have different migration patterns and I think this is reflected very obviously, in the types of visas that women and men who migrate into the UK usually take or usually apply to. And the differences are also a reflection of the gender roles that women and men have derived from the roles that they occupy, in family and society.
Dr Sara Reis (11:05):
Men, when we look at the different types of visas, when we look at work visas, men are the majority of migrants who comes here on worker visas. On the other hand, when we look at family and dependent visas, these are visas... Family visas are visas where richer citizens or settled persons bring their spouses or bring their close family members to the UK. These are family visas and then we have dependent visas, these are visas that people who accompany all the migrants into the UK have.
Dr Sara Reis (11:49):
Women are two thirds of those, indeed, two types of visas. And I think this is really important because these two types of visas, family and dependent, as the name shows, they are very much dependent on another person for their continuation. Women on these types of visas, they are dependent on the relationship with the person who sponsored them into the UK, for their right to stay in the UK. And this springs all issues around dependency and potential for abuse as well. All the other types of visas as well, which I think are interesting, are the student visas, women are actually the majority of those on student visas.
Dr Sara Reis (12:42):
Student visas is actually the largest category of immigration in the UK, and so this is also quite an important category. And I think it's also important to flag that, we have these unique categories for different types of migrants. Obviously, many migrants will have different visas at different points of their migration journey. And it's also important to note that women on all kinds of visas, not just on worker visas but all kinds of visas, they also participate in the economy and they hold jobs.
Alice Merry (13:27):
So we see that women are overrepresented in visa statuses that are dependent on a relative or on somebody else that they've traveled with, and that they are more likely to be, I suppose, also economically dependent on that person, in a visa system or in an immigration system that prioritizes the salary-receiving worker in the family. And at the same time, you've mentioned that part of the immigration system means that these immigrants are not able to access public funds, public help, support from the government. Could you tell us a bit more about how that impacts on the economic position of women migrants?
Dr Sara Reis (14:17):
Yes, of course. I think there are two main issues, when we look at the economic position of migrant women in the UK, that we need to consider. And one, like you very correctly identified, is the no recourse to public funds policy. This is a condition that is attached to all types of immigration visas and, like I mentioned at the beginning, it's very much about from the state's point of view, it's about making sure that migrants are not going to be a burden on the state.
Dr Sara Reis (14:54):
And so, as you very well mentioned as well, this is also means that if women are disproportionately those migrants who are in a position of the dependency for their status on another person, they are also very often in a position of economic dependency or financial dependence on that person as well. And this has implications, like I mentioned, for their vulnerability to abuse, their vulnerability to exploitation and their ability to make their own decisions.
Dr Sara Reis (15:34):
And I think another issue, which is also important when we're looking at the economic position of migrant women, is to look at, for those migrants women who are working, which sectors they are most represented in, what are their employment patterns, et cetera. And so one of the main sectors that has a high proportion of migrant women working in, is the social care sector. This is the sector that provides support to disabled people or to people who have illnesses, or people who are old and need support with their daily lives.
Dr Sara Reis (16:22):
And here we have, 16% of the workforce are migrants and this is a workforce that we know is... The vast majority of this workforce is female, so we've got 85% of workers are women. This is a sector with a high proportion of migrant women working in it, and it's a sector where we know wages are very low so the conditions, the working conditions, are very precarious as well.
Dr Sara Reis (17:01):
And then we also have two other sectors, hospitality and cleaning, with also a high proportion of migrant women working in them. Cleaning, it's estimated that a quarter of the workforce are migrant women and, again, these are sectors with very low pay, it's very usual for employees to be self-employed instead of employed by the people that they work with. It's a sector that is marked by very unsocial hours as well and, again, it's a sector where the vast majority of workers are women.
Dr Sara Reis (17:42):
And so it's an interesting sector, in a way, because it's a sector where you have the vast majority of workers in entry-level positions or in lower-level positions are women. But then you have a managerial staff which are predominantly men and both hospitality and cleaning are two sectors, which are rife with exploitation and with sexual harassment as well. And the reason why migrant women are more vulnerable to these kinds of exploitation or harassment is, often, they aren't familiar with the system. They don't know the rights, they may not be very familiar with the language as well, and they will be afraid of reporting because of the hostile environment as well. And also, they are more vulnerable because of the no recourse to public funds policy, which means that if they lose their jobs, they cannot fall back on a safety net because they are barred from accessing most benefits.
Dr Sara Reis (19:00):
And I think it's also important to mention the informal economy. There are lots of migrant women and, particularly, migrant women with insecure status or migrant women who might be undocumented, who will be very hard-pressed to find a job, doing cash-in-hand jobs. And again, this is a perfect environment where exploitation can more easily happen. And again, because they are working in the informal economy, they will not make contributions to social security so the very limited number of benefits that migrant workers are able to access, which are related to their contributions to social security, are also barred to these women because of the informal nature of their employment.
Alice Merry (19:59):
I wonder if, as well as sometimes struggling to access formal employment and having to work in the informal sector, do migrant women sometimes also struggle to access formal financial services?
Dr Sara Reis (20:13):
Yes, I think that's also a big issue for migrant women. And I think there are two issues here at play and one, like we talked about the hostile environment is quite a big one, there are strict rules when it comes to opening bank accounts or accessing bank loans. For many migrant women and, again, particularly women who may be working in the informal economy or may have an insecure status, immigration status. It might be harder for them to prove their earnings, to prove their identity and so if they're undocumented, they won't be able to prove their identity. And so all of these things will make it harder for them to access formal financial services.
Dr Sara Reis (21:06):
And again, migrant women and migrants in general will also be wary, often, of accessing these kinds of services because of the links that they know exist between the Home Office, which is the government agency responsible for immigration, and civil society actors like employers, banks or a landlord, which effectively turns them into border agents. And another issue is also, it's more of a gendered issue in the sense that, there are gender aspects when it comes to money control within households. And we know this and this is not specific to migrant women although, for cultural reasons, for language reasons, some migrant women often rely on partners or on their extended family for money management.
Alice Merry (22:10):
You talked about the fact that migrant women, very frequently, are overrepresented in certain sectors; hospitality, social care, informal work. And these are all sectors that have been particularly hardly hit by the COVID-19 crisis. And I know that you put together the report before the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown had really come into full effect, so I'd be interested to hear how you're seeing the economic position of migrant women changing, or seeing the impact of COVID-19 on this group.
Dr Sara Reis (22:46):
Yes, I think it was a very interesting timeline for this report because we finished it around February, before the pandemic was evident and before the lockdown was imposed, but then we continued to work on it and we published it in May, when lockdown was in full steam and the impact in different groups of women, in particular, were already coming to the fore. And I think it was also a good exercise to us, because it made us see many of the things that we had highlighted in the report, in a new light.
Dr Sara Reis (23:29):
And I think, when we think back on what underpins the UK immigration system, the fact that it privileges workers in self-sufficiency at all costs. We can see how that would become a recipe for disaster for migrants during a pandemic, because this was a moment when people were encouraged not to work. And so if your earnings rely entirely on your ability to work in your jobs, and if you don't have a safety net to fall back on when that disappears or when that is curtailed, then you will be in a financial position which will be much more precarious than is the case for other British workers.
Dr Sara Reis (24:21):
And like you mentioned, sectors where migrant women are overrepresented were particularly affected by the shutdown. Things like hotels, the whole tourism industry, non-retail, the food services, cleaning, all of these things effectively stopped. And again, these were sectors which were already quite precarious and low-paid. And so many of the workers here were not entitled to the Sick Pay, they were not entitled to other sorts of benefits. And even though migrants were included in the earnings support schemes that the government introduced, the Job Retention Scheme and the support for self-employed workers, migrants could apply but in these sectors where zero-hour contracts are very frequent, there is low-pay, very often it's just easier for employers to cut hours or dismiss staff, rather than to put them on furlough. And again, this is a particular problem for migrants because they don't have access to social security.
Dr Sara Reis (25:47):
These are the shut down sectors but when we look at the sectors on the frontline, or some of the sectors on the frontline of the response to the pandemic, healthcare, social care, these are sectors where migrants are, again, overrepresented. And thinking about social care in particular, it's a key sector, it was at the frontline of the response, and there were huge issues about the lack of personal protective equipment. There was a heightened stress of, obviously, dealing with these cases and the full force of the pandemic but also, added stress of having, very often, to work extended hours because many colleagues were self-isolating or they were themselves becoming ill.
Dr Sara Reis (26:45):
Again, because this sector is quite poorly paid, many of these workers, many care workers, they simply cannot afford to self-isolate if they have symptoms, because they may not be entitled to Sick Pay, because you have to earn a certain amount of wages every week to be entitled to Sick Pay and migrant women, in particular, they are not entitled to other types of benefits.
Dr Sara Reis (27:20):
You end up in a position which is completely disastrous, which is, you have many workers in a workforce, that are not able to play it safe and self-isolate if they have symptoms, because they cannot afford to. And then you just increase the risk of these workers becoming vectors of infection because many care workers, for instance, they're working in several homes so they might be doing home visits, to care for the people who need support, or they might be working in different residential settings and so they risk becoming vectors of infection. Like I mentioned at the beginning, this all becomes a disastrous situation because you have these people who are encouraged not to work, in many instances, they lose their jobs and they cannot rely on the social security safety nets, that so many other millions of workers became forced to rely on.
Alice Merry (28:32):
It's quite astounding that in this time, like you say, that we're encouraged to be less productive, for many migrant workers, that's not really a choice that they have or it's a choice that has really devastating consequences for them, if they can't fall back on the social security that's available to other workers. And do you see the government shifting at all on that? Do you think that it's possible that there'll be some kind of a temporary suspension of the no recourse to public funds policy?
Dr Sara Reis (29:01):
I mean, there was, currently, more attention being brought to this issue. But I think there was one point where the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was confronted in parliament about the no recourse to public funds policy. And he appeared not to understand how it worked and so he wasn't aware that it meant that, migrant workers simply cannot rely on benefits that other workers can rely. And so it was a very surreal moment, I think, to be confronted with that awareness that the Prime Minister doesn't understand the policy that creates misery for so many people.
Dr Sara Reis (29:51):
I mean, we haven't really seen any moves on this, this policy was recently challenged in the High Court, on the grounds that it violated human rights. And the court ruled in favor of that, so the court ruled that it did breach migrants' human rights. But it's very recent and it remains to be seen, what will the policy impact be when it comes to the overall policy and whether it will be suspended, or whether it will be reviewed or changed, in any way.
Alice Merry (30:32):
And now, the UK is entering quite a controversial stage of a gradual relaxing of the lockdown rules. We're starting to see people meeting in slightly larger groups, we're seeing more people returning to work, do you have any early indications of how this gradual loosening of the lockdown is impacting on migrant women?
Dr Sara Reis (30:59):
Yes. In one aspect, I think this might bring some respite for migrant women who were facing hardship in different ways. We know that voluntary organizations, for instance, that supported, traditionally supported, migrant women, they very much operate on a presential basis. Just because some migrant women, particularly the most disadvantaged of migrant women, they will not necessarily have access to a smartphone or the internet, or they may have to share a laptop or share a smartphone with other members of the household. They would not necessarily be able to access support, when support was transferred online. And so we interviewed a lot of volunteer organizations for a new report we're working on, and they all were very concerned that many women that they support were falling through the gaps, they weren't being able to reach the women that they knew were the most disadvantaged.
Dr Sara Reis (32:18):
As the lockdown is eased and as these organizations are able to start offering support, on a face-to-face basis, are able to start getting in touch with the communities that they support, again, this may actually be a good thing for women and migrant women in particular, who need these kinds of support groups and support services. And it's also very much, many of these groups are also essential to fight isolation for these groups of women. And so this is also a good thing in terms of mental health and making sure that isolation is less of a problem, going forward. But obviously, there are some concerns and there are some drawbacks to this lifting of the lockdown and I think the major one is the transition back again, into work. Cleaners, for instance, were one of the first groups that were advised to go back to work, cleaners who worked in other people's homes, that were allowed back to work in May.
Dr Sara Reis (33:39):
And there were a lot of concerns around this, when this was announced, because PPE, protective personal equipment, was lacking even in the most frontline services like healthcare and social care. There were big concerns that women who worked as cleaners and other professions that were starting to go back to work, would not have access to this equipment, and that it would not necessarily be provided by employers. And so we have to think, again, that these are workers who don't necessarily have much bargaining power with their employers, to ask or to request PPE, to be able to do their job and to refuse and not to do their job if it is not safe, for all the reasons that we've talked about. And again, traveling to these different households, if you're a cleaner and you're employed by different households, you have to then travel between them. If you have to use public transport, is it safe? All of these concerns were very much voiced at the time when this was announced.
Dr Sara Reis (35:04):
And I think another concern is one that is transversal to all women, which is childcare. How can parents and mothers, in particular, because they are usually the ones with the caring responsibility, how are they expected to go back to work when workers are now being encouraged to go back to work, if they can't work from home? When you have schools, industries that are not fully reopened, they are not working to their full capacity yet? And in particularly, in a time when informal childcare is also not an option, so people cannot rely on grandparents or on other relatives or friends, to take care of their children?
Alice Merry (35:53):
I was thinking about the fact that, at the same time as this paper has come out, in the midst of a particularly important moment in relation to COVID-19, it's also come out in a moment when there's been a renewed spotlight on the Black Lives Matter movement. Not only in the US, where this was all sparked by the murder of George Floyd, but also in the UK, whether there's been a renewed spotlight on the Black Lives Matter campaign, in the UK as well. And I was curious to ask you about how the fight for the rights of migrant women is intersecting and forming part of this broader political and anti-racist movements, that are taking place at the moment?
Dr Sara Reis (36:38):
I think this is a very important question and I think they are two sides of the same fight. Firstly, because there is a large and an obvious overlap between the two groups. Migrants and Black and Asian and minority ethnic population, they very much overlap these two groups. Many migrants are from ethnic minorities so you cannot really progress the rights of migrant women, without acknowledging the fact that most of them also face racism.
Dr Sara Reis (37:19):
But the inverse is also true, when we look at the hostile environment and its effect, the hostile environment doesn't just affect migrants, especially because people don't really carry their papers or their immigration status for everyone to see, it's very much about perceptions of who is a migrant and who isn't. The same culture that mandates employers and landlords to check whether the people they're employing or renting houses to, if they have the right to stay, this is a culture that has also affected people from ethnic minorities.
Dr Sara Reis (38:03):
There's this suspicion that the hostile environment fostered about minority ethnic, British citizens, because of the color of their skin. You have all these actors who are supposed to work as border patrols, wondering if these people are here illegally, if they have the right to stay, in a way that White migrants don't necessarily face or they may not face to the same extent. And we have had evidence from organizations that support migrant women from a Latin American background, that even when these women, even when migrant women who have a background in Latin America, they have a EU passport, even in these cases, they tend to face discrimination and they are often challenged on their rights even though, on paper, they're entitled to the same things as other EU citizens. But they are challenged on these rights to an extent that a White EU citizen may not face. And so I think this is to say that the hostile environment, it's very much about race, not just immigration, if not in its design, certainly in its effect.
Alice Merry (39:38):
I want to finish up by asking you about the proposals that the Women's Budget Group and its partners, are putting forward to improve the economic position of migrant women in the UK. What would you like to see change in coming years?
Dr Sara Reis (39:52):
I think a big thing that we would like to see was an absolute change in the no recourse to public funds policy. I think, ideally, this policy should be abolished because this was implemented as a way to ensure that migrants don't become a burden on the state. But when we actually look at the most destitute migrants, migrants who are facing hardship because of this policy, most of them are actually in employment so they are working, they are trying to support themselves and their families through earnings, but their wages are simply not enough to make ends meet. And I think this is important to also note that, we have millions of British workers who are also employees but they are relying on benefits as well, to make ends meet, to top up their wages because paid work is not a ticket out of poverty, at the moment.
Dr Sara Reis (41:09):
And when we look also at the vast majority of migrants who apply to have the no recourse condition listed, this is something that the Home Office can do at their discretion, they can lift this ban on accessing public funds for specific migrants. The people who apply to have this lifted, the vast majority are single mothers. And so we know that there's very clear gender aspects here as well and a gender impact, of this policy. And in the end, we truly believe that this is a false economy because all that we know about when the state invests in families, even small things like free school meals, child benefits, all of these things, they go a long way in saving money further down the line in crisis services, because they contribute to keep the population healthy, they contribute to keep children socially integrated and so they are more likely to want to grow up healthy, have a job, et cetera. Again, in the end, having this policy that penalizes so many migrants, so many families, it's truly a false economy. That's one thing that we would very much like to see.
Dr Sara Reis (42:40):
And then another is, better protections for migrant women who are victims of domestic abuse. As we've seen, dependency is a problem both on income and on many migrant women's rights to stay. Their visa will be dependent on the relationship, sometimes, with the abuser so we want to make sure that there is a fast-track process where women in abusive relationships can get indefinite leave to remain, so that they can leave these relationships and rebuild their lives. And for that, they also need to be able to access public funds, so they need to be able to access domestic abuse refuges, they need to be able to access social housing, social security so that they can rebuild their lives.
Dr Sara Reis (43:33):
And currently, the system exists but it's limited to women who are on family visas. What we and many organizations who deal with migrant women victims of domestic abuse... We want to see the system extended to all migrant women who are victims of abuse, to make sure that they can have a fast-track process of applying for a visa in their own rights. And finally, I think this is something that, at the Women's Budget Group, we are constantly advocating for the governments to do, is we want an equality impact assessment of the current immigration bill. This is where the government has its immigration design plans which will apply once freedom of movement ends in December, 2020. And we want these plans to be assessed on what they will mean and what they will do to equality in the UK.
Dr Sara Reis (44:38):
And we know that the plans are about privileging male-dominated sectors, things like engineering, things like IT, things like STEM, these are all very important but they are not more important than sectors that are currently not privileged in this new immigration system, like social care, that's kept us going during the pandemic, which are paid below the salary threshold needed to secure a worker visa and are still considered low-skilled.
Dr Sara Reis (45:17):
And also, if there is a salary threshold, we know that women are less likely to earn enough to qualify, just because they earn less than men, there is also an inequality impact there, of having a salary threshold. That's what we want, we want to see a system that privileges care roles alongside other flashier sectors, but which are just as foundational to our economy and to our society's wellbeing as they are or if not, even more, as this pandemic clearly has shown.
Alice Merry (46:00):
As always, The Women's Budget Group is doing such important work to lay bare the economic realities that women face. 2020 is a year that has seen migrant workers facing the worst of our collective crises. In the UK, policies known as the hostile environment, as well as labor exploitation and abuse, had already been leaving migrant workers in crisis, in many cases, over the last decade.
Alice Merry (46:24):
This year, sectors like hospitality, where women migrants make up a large proportion of the workforce, have been some of the hardest hit by the pandemic. And migrant workers are also overrepresented in the health and social care sectors that are on the front line of dealing with the crisis. In the coming months, these crises may be compounded by economic recession and by Brexit and immigration policies that continue to privilege male-dominated sectors.
Alice Merry (46:49):
There are lots of organizations doing really important work to support migrant women, and to urge the UK government to make changes in immigration policies and, in particular, campaigning for an end to the damaging, No Recourse to Public Funds policy. In fact, the Women's Budget Group held a webinar on the topic which brought together many organizations doing this work, including Southhall Black Sisters, the Latin American Women's Rights Service, Women for Refugee Women and Foleshill Women's Training. I'll put a link in the show notes, it's a great resource to hear directly from their experiences supporting migrant women. Finally, I'll wrap up by thanking you for being part of this podcast over the last year, and wishing you a very happy festive period and a wonderful 2021. See you next year.