Migrants’ chances or choices in a sub-protective welfare regime?

Even more intensely since the recession, employment conditions deteriorated, and welfare systems continued their reforming processes. Southern European countries saw their labour market situation worsened. Immigrants were one of the social groups more affected by high unemployment, informal and precarious working conditions. The article focuses on the main groups of immigrants in Portugal (Brazilians, Ukrainians and Cape Verdeans). It aims to test if and how, depending on their different forms of insertion into the labour market and relationship with the social protection system, these groups of immigrants coped with massive unemployment and precarious working conditions in different ways. According to the country of origin, weak/strong networks, secure/insecure position at work or personal circumstances, they could either choose to stay, re-emigrate or return to their origin countries. Empirical analysis is based on focus groups with unemployed immigrants, an online survey, and statistical data analysis. Findings suggest that, in a highly segmented labour market, under a weak and fragmented social protection system, the migrants’ individual decision is induced by the social structure, and not so much by individual agency.