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Coping with COVID-19 lockdown: a qualitative study of older adults in alcohol treatment
- Paulina Trevena, Jennifer Seddon, Lawrie Elliott, Sarah Wadd, Maureen Dutton
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- Journal:
- Ageing & Society , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 19 January 2024, pp. 1-18
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- Article
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The COVID-19 global pandemic had a major impact on older people's mental health and resulted in changes in alcohol use, with more older adults increasing than decreasing consumption levels among the general population. So far, no studies have focused on older people who were already experiencing problem alcohol use. This qualitative research is the first to provide a nuanced understanding of changes to drinking patterns among older adults engaged in alcohol treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the implications of these for practice. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with people in alcohol treatment aged 55+ living in urban and rural areas across the UK. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. We found that changes in alcohol use varied depending on the social, economic and health impacts of the pandemic on older adults. Boredom, lack of adequate medical or emotional support, and key life changes experienced during the pandemic (such as bereavement or retirement) increased the risk of increased drinking. Moreover, some people in longer-term alcohol treatment were struggling to maintain abstinence due to lack of face-to-face peer support. For others, decreased drinking levels were a side-effect of lockdown policies and restrictions, such as alcohol-related hospitalisations, closure of social spaces or inability to source alcohol; these also supported those who decided to cut down on drinking shortly before the pandemic. Generally, older adults who developed home-based interests and self-care practices managed lockdown best, maintaining abstinence or lower risk drinking levels. Based on these results, we argue that multilevel interventions aimed at strengthening resilience are required to reduce drinking or maintain abstinence among older adults. Such interventions should address three domains: individual (coping strategies and mindset), social (support networks), and structural (access to resources). In preparation for supporting older alcohol users through prospective future pandemics, building digital literacy and inclusion are essential.
8 - ‘New’ Migrations Transforming the City: East European Settlement in Glasgow
- Edited by Keith Kintrea, Rebecca Madgin, University of Glasgow
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- Book:
- Transforming Glasgow
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 25 March 2021
- Print publication:
- 18 December 2019, pp 159-178
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Summary
Contemporary migrations are literally re-making cities (…) and this is not a banal fact of changing population demographics
Nicholas de Genova (2015, p 4)Introduction
We are living in an ‘age of migration’ (Castles, de Haas and Miller, 2013) within which ‘migration and the city can be viewed as two sides of the same coin, having built and accompanied each other's development over the centuries leading to the contemporary global system’ (Portes, 2000, p 154). Over the last 50 years, economic and technological developments in the global North have led to the rise of ‘global cities’ and created particular demands for migrant labour (Wills et al, 2010). International migration, whilst by no means a new phenomenon, has taken on new features and brought new changes to cities like Glasgow as they become differently embedded in the economic, political and social configurations of the contemporary world.
In the global North, the neo-liberal reforms of the 1980s produced a new model of employment. Many industries moved to subcontracting and other flexible employment arrangements. As a result, lowskilled and low-paid jobs no longer came with the benefits of stable employment or strongly unionised workforces able to demand labour rights (Standing, 2011). Such jobs became less attractive to the local population. At the same time, the service sector expanded considerably, especially in ‘global cities’ (Sassen, 2001), creating a growing need for cheap and flexible labour. These developments created new opportunities as well as new forms of precarity for migrant workers.
Other political and economic processes in sending countries have also impacted on the scale and nature of international migration flows. Compared with the mass migrations that followed the Second World War, migration trends from the 1980s onwards have been characterised by increasing diversification of countries of origin, length of stay, categories of migrants and their motivations (Pardo, 2018, p 3). In Europe, this led to the expansion of multicultural urban societies (Castles and Davidson, 2000; Castles, de Haas and Miller, 2013; Koser and Lutz, 1998; Thranhardt, 1996), some of which have become ‘super-diverse’ (Vertovec, 2006).
On the European continent, shifting migration flows and trajectories over the last three decades have also been shaped by geopolitical changes which began with the fall of East European communist regimes in the late 1980s, the end of the Cold War and relaxation of border controls between East and West Europe.
9 - Why do Highly Educated Migrants go for Low-skilled Jobs?: A Case Study of Polish Graduates Working in London
- Edited by Birgit Glorius, Izabela Grabowska-Lusinska, Aimee Kuvik
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- Book:
- Mobility in Transition
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 12 December 2020
- Print publication:
- 17 June 2013, pp 169-190
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Summary
Introduction
Beginning from Piore's (1979) seminal work on the existence of a dual labour market in highly developed countries, the secondary sector of the economy has been associated predominantly with low-educated, unskilled labour. The fact that growing numbers of highly educated persons also gravitate towards this sector has only fairly recently been acknowledged in migration studies (Raijman & Semyonov 1995; Morawska & Spohn 1997; Brandi 2001; Reyneri 2004; Düvell 2004; Csedő 2007; Lianos 2007). This phenomenon has become especially conspicuous in the case of Eastern Europeans from A-8 countries, particularly Poles, working in the United Kingdom (Anderson et al. 2006; Drinkwater, Eade & Garapich 2006; Currie 2007).
Research has shown that Poles recently arrived in the United Kingdom are primarily employed in low-skilled and low paying jobs, even if they possess high levels of education (Drinkwater, Eade & Garapich 2006: 18). However, this is by no means a novelty, since this trend actually emerged in the decade preceding Poland's accession to the European Union. Britain has long been a favourite destination for highly educated Poles, who typically undertake work in low-skilled sectors there (see Jordan 2002; Düvell 2004; Trevena 2008). Nevertheless, with the great increase in the numbers of Polish nationals entering the country since May 2004, the phenomenon has become especially conspicuous and has attracted the attention of scholars and the media alike.
In migration research, persons who have a university degree are customarily considered highly skilled workers (Iredale 2001; Kaczmarczyk & Okólski 2005: 45). Their movement has been linked with the global expansion of world trade and the international expansion of transnational companies or with shortages of certain expertise in local labour markets (Mahroum 2001: 28). Typically, the highly skilled are seen as elite global movers, advancing their professional careers through migration. There is another category of highly skilled migrants acknowledged in the literature, those for whom movement equates to ‘occupational skidding’ and a drop in status. Little attention has so far been given to the reasons behind such experiences.
This chapter aims to elucidate the phenomenon of educated migrants from Poland working in low-skilled jobs in the United Kingdom.
3 - Patterns and Determinants of sub-Regional Migration: A case Study of Polish Construction Workers in Norway
- Edited by Richard Black, Godfried Engbersen, Marek Okólski, Cristina Panţîru
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- Book:
- A Continent Moving West?
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 03 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 July 2012, pp 51-72
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Summary
Introduction
Accession to the European Union in 2004 has had a profound impact on patterns of Polish labour migration. Norway is a very new country to experience inflows from Poland, with little migration taking place prior to 2004. However, it has seen a sharp increase in the level of migration from Poland, with a pilot study entitled ‘Polish migrants to Oslo’ (PMO, see Friberg in this volume) demonstrating that in the case of the Oslo area, labour migration is strictly based on demand, and driven primarily by the construction sector.
This chapter argues that migration of workers to the construction sector in Norway is a sub-regionalised phenomenon, with the majority of migrants in Oslo originating from four regions in Poland: Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie, Małopolskie and Śląskie. The chapter analyses the reasons behind this trend and provides an insight into the mechanisms that have shaped and channelled these flows. The first part of the chapter provides a brief overview of the current conditions in the Polish and Norwegian construction sector. An analysis of the role of migration networks in directing the current migration flow of Polish construction workers to the Oslo area follows. The final part of the chapter is devoted to an examination of the conditions on the workers’ regional labour markets in Poland, and how these shape sub-regional patterns of migration.
Push and pull factors at macro level
As noted in chapter 2, an overwhelming figure of 92 per cent of the males interviewed in the PMO study was working in the construction sector in the Oslo area. Significantly, only 45 per cent of these migrants had completed formal training in construction or a related area in Poland, and could thus be considered as skilled workers upon arrival. It is therefore clearly visible that the current migration wave of Poles to Norway is indeed demand-driven, as the need for workers in the Norwegian construction sector is so strong that, besides a qualified workforce, it attracts considerable numbers of workers with no appropriate vocational background and/or work experience. Nevertheless, in our analysis we would like to concentrate on the group of skilled construction workers exclusively, i.e. those who had acquired appropriate qualifications through training in the home country and, though moving abroad, remain in the same sector of employment.