It’s Monday, 8:30, two rejections, one R&R, and two requests to review (one of which I considered spam). Hope you all have a great week!
Out now: Restricting Human Movement during the COVID-19 Pandemic: New Research Avenues in the Study of Mobility, Migration, and Citizenship
I’m happy to announce that our research note on studying border closures and related restrictions to human mobility in the context of Covid-19 is now available at the International Migration Review.
We highlight how restrictions to human mobility were far from uniform across time and countries. The research note identifies 7 different databases that systematically collected information on these restrictions, which should help others identify the right database — they vary in what exactly they cover.
We also present possible research avenues in connection with these data on mobility restrictions: (1) drivers of Covid-19 mobility restrictions, (2) patterns of policy convergence and divergence, (3) the legality of mobility restrictions, (4) continuity and change in global migration policy, (5) citizenship and international mobility rights. In all these cases, data on restrictions during the pandemic can significantly advance research on the governance of mobility, migration, and citizenship.
Piccoli, Lorenzo, Jelena Dzankic, Didier Ruedin, and Timothy Jacobs-Owen. 2022. “Restricting Human Movement during the COVID-19 Pandemic: New Research Avenues in the Study of Mobility, Migration, and Citizenship.” International Migration Review. doi: 10.1177/01979183221118907. 
The association between attitudes and political representation under different electoral systems
It’s been a while since Maria Sobolewska suggested to me, that perhaps the association between public attitudes and political representation may be different under different electoral systems (PR versus majoritarian). The intuition here is that institutions always work in a particular context. To some extent, my work acknowledged this by leaving out unfree countries because the expected dynamics are different — but there indeed is more to it.
I have shown that there is a strong association between positive attitudes to minorities and the inclusion of minorities in political offices.
If we look at the interaction between attitudes and electoral system, we find that this association is much stronger under majoritarian/MMM systems. Although I’m not sure that we should read much into the blue line here (PR/MMP systems) because the ethnic representation score does not vary that much.
At the same time, looking at gender representation, we find a strong association between attitudes in the population and gender representation scores.
Maybe someone wants to dig deeper here? Possibly a consideration of why PR systems may be good for minorities could complement this.
Ruedin, Didier. 2009. “Ethnic Group Representation in a Cross-National Comparison.” The Journal of Legislative Studies 15(4):335–54. doi: 10.1080/13572330903302448.
Ruedin, Didier. 2012. “The Representation of Women in National Parliaments: A Cross-National Comparison.” European Sociological Review 28(1):96–109. doi: 10.1093/esr/jcq050.
Ruedin, Didier. 2013. Why Aren’t They There? The Political Representation of Women, Ethnic Groups and Issue Positions in Legislatures. Colchester: ECPR Press.
Ruedin, Didier. 2020. “Ethnic and Regional Minorities.” Pp. 211–28 in Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies, edited by R. Rohrschneider and J. J. Thomassen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Job Opportunities at HES-SO Valais-Wallis
For a project on ageing and poverty, there are job opportunities at HES-SO — as PhD researcher or as research associate:
Why Do Some Immigrants ‘Whiten’ their Résumés?
Over at the NCCR on the move blog, there’s a summary of research undertaken jointly with Eva Van Belle on CV Whitening. The blog post takes a step back and embeds considerations of CV Whitening in broader research on ethnic discrimination in the job market and the correspondence tests we use to measure discrimination.
In Western countries, we observe that some employers discriminate against people with a name indicating that they are from a minority group. Research has shown that if you have a name signalling that you are an ‘immigrant’ or belong to an ‘ethnic minority,’ the chances of being invited to a job interview are reduced. Factoring in the potential discrimination, some immigrants and members of ethnic minority groups have been observed to adopt strategies to hide details that show their minority status from their applications.
Correspondence tests have highlighted systematic discrimination in the labour market. In a correspondence test researchers create fictitious applications and send them to real employers and landlords. The applications are constructed in a way to highlight discriminatory practices in cases where minority applicants are invited less often to interviews. On average, applicants from non-neighbouring countries find it much harder to be invited to a job interview.
Considering the discrimination, ‘immigrants’ and members of ethnic minority groups have a clear incentive to hide details from their applications that make their minority statuses apparent. On the contrary, if an employer cannot tell that the applicant is an ‘immigrant’ or belongs to a minority group, the chances of getting invited to an interview have been noted to increase.
Ruedin, Didier, and Eva Van Belle. 2022. ‘The Extent of Résumé Whitening’. Sociological Research Online. Forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1177/13607804221094625.
Didier Ruedin 