EDUCATIONAL FILTERING, LABOR MARKET CHANNELING, AND ONWARD MIGRATION AMONG SECOND-GENERATION FILIPINOS IN ATHENS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46827/ejsss.v12i4.2236Parole chiave:
second-generation Filipinos, Athens, educational filtering, labor-market channeling, onward migration, mobility constraints, GreeceAbstract
This study examines the educational trajectories, labor-market transitions, and mobility horizons of second-generation Filipinos in Athens. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative design, it draws on semi-structured interviews and small focus-group discussions conducted in community settings. Data were collected between September 2023 and June 2025 through snowball sampling and comprise 80 interviews in Greek and English, with focus-group participants included within this total sample. The analysis shows that mobility constraints are produced through the intersection of institutional filtering across education and citizenship-related access, labor-market channeling, and a family moral economy structured around a “debt of sacrifice” that narrows what counts as acceptable risk. The findings indicate that educational pathways and transitions into work are shaped by bureaucratic barriers, documentation-related uncertainty, and enduring stereotypes, despite participants’ linguistic fluency and educational investment. Family obligations and community-based norms further shape how participants assess acceptable educational and occupational choices. Onward migration emerges as a salient mobility horizon, associated with protracted citizenship-related procedures, bounded opportunity structures, and uncertainty about long-term settlement in Greece.Riferimenti bibliografici
Adams, R. H., Jr., & Page, J. (2005). Do international migration and remittances reduce poverty in developing countries? World Development, 33(10), 1645–1669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.05.004
Argyrakou, C. C. (2026). School transitions, multilingualism and educational inclusion among second-generation Filipinos in Athens. International Journal of Social Science and Education Research, 8(6), 26–37. https://doi.org/10.33545/26649845.2026.v8.i6a.686
Asis, M. M. B. (2020). Repatriating Filipino migrant workers in the time of the pandemic (Migration Research Series No. 63). International Organization for Migration. https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mrs-63.pdf
Baldoz, R. (2011). The third Asiatic invasion: Migration and empire in Filipino America, 1898–1946. New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814789889.001.0001
Bevan, M. T. (2014). A method of phenomenological interviewing. Qualitative Health Research, 24(1), 136–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732313519710
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Bryceson, D., & Vuorela, U. (Eds.). (2020). The transnational family: New European frontiers and global networks. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003087205
Bucerius, S. M. (2013). Becoming a “trusted outsider”: Gender, ethnicity, and inequality in ethnographic research. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 42(6), 690–721. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241613497747
Caillaud, S., & Flick, U. (2017). Focus groups in triangulation contexts. In R. S. Barbour & D. L. Morgan (Eds.), A new era in focus group research: Challenges, innovation and practice (pp. 155–177). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58614-8_8
Choy, C. C. (2003). Empire of care: Nursing and migration in Filipino American history. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822384410
Ciminelli, G., Schwellnus, C., & Stadler, B. (2021). Sticky floors or glass ceilings? The role of human capital, working time flexibility and discrimination in the gender wage gap (OECD Economics Department Working Papers No. 1668). OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/02ef3235-en
Fajth, V., & Lessard-Phillips, L. (2023). Multidimensionality in the integration of first- and second-generation migrants in Europe: A conceptual and empirical investigation. International Migration Review, 57(1), 187–216. https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183221089290
Goce-Dakila, C., & Dakila, F. G., Jr. (2009). Spatial impact of overseas Filipino workers’ remittances on the Philippine economy. Philippine Review of Economics, 46(2), 221–241. https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/index.php/pre/article/view/8
Gogonas, N., & Tramountanis, A. (2023). Acquiring citizenship through naturalization in Greece: A Sisyphean struggle for immigrants. Social Sciences, 12(10), 545. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12100545
Guevarra, A. R. (2006). Managing ‘vulnerabilities’ and ‘empowering’ migrant Filipina workers: The Philippines’ overseas employment program. Social Identities, 12(5), 523–541. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630600920118
Hochschild, A. R. (2015). Global care chains and emotional surplus value. In D. Engster & T. Metz (Eds.), Justice, politics, and the family (pp. 249–261). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315633794-21
Levitt, P. (2009). Roots and Routes: Understanding the lives of the second generation transnationally. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35(7), 1225–1242. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830903006309
Li, W., & García, O. (2022). Not a first language but one repertoire: Translanguaging as a decolonizing project. RELC Journal, 53(2), 313–324. https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882221092841
Maloutas, T., Spyrellis, S., Hadjiyanni, A., Capella, A., & Valassi, D. (2019). Residential and school segregation as parameters of educational performance in Athens. Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography, 917. https://doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.33085
Menjívar, C., Abrego, L. J., & Schmalzbauer, L. C. (2016). Immigrant families. Polity Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.ro/books/about/Immigrant_Families.html?hl=zh-TW&id=u9cQDQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
Michos, I., & Xenitidou, M. (2025). Citizenship and acculturation as contested argumentative frames: Negotiating socio-political and cultural belonging in the talk of NGO workers in Greece. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 35(6), e70193. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.70193
Moro, F. R., & Russo, G. (2024). Family language policy in multilingual Filipino families in Italy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 46(9), 2965–2979. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2024.2321389
Naderifar, M., Goli, H., & Ghaljaie, F. (2017). Snowball sampling: A purposeful method of sampling in qualitative research. Strides in Development of Medical Education, 14(3), e67670. https://doi.org/10.5812/sdme.67670
Nagasaka, I. (2015). Immigrating into a segregated social space: The case of 1.5-generation Filipinos in Italy. In I. Nagasaka & A. Fresnoza-Flot (Eds.), Mobile childhoods in Filipino transnational families: Migrant children with similar roots in different routes (pp. 87–116). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137515148_5
Parker, C., Scott, S., & Geddes, A. (2019). Snowball sampling. In P. Atkinson, S. Delamont, A. Cernat, J. W. Sakshaug, & R. A. Williams (Eds.), SAGE Research Methods Foundations. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526421036831710
Parreñas, R. S. (2001). Mothering from a distance: Emotions, gender, and intergenerational relations in Filipino transnational families. Feminist Studies, 27(2), 361–390. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178765
Parreñas, R. S. (2005). Long distance intimacy: Class, gender and intergenerational relations between mothers and children in Filipino transnational families. Global Networks, 5(4), 317–336. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-0374.2005.00122.x
Parreñas, R. S. (2015). Servants of globalization: Migration and domestic work (2nd ed.). Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804796187
Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2001). Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. University of California Press; Russell Sage Foundation.
Portes, A., & Zhou, M. (1993). The new second generation: Segmented assimilation and its variants. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 530(1), 74–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716293530001006
Portes, A., Vickstrom, E., & Aparicio, R. (2011). Coming of age in Spain: The self-identification, beliefs and self-esteem of the second generation. The British Journal of Sociology, 62(3), 387–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01371.x
Rathe, K. J. (2022). Towards a critical phenomenology of borders and migration. Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology, 5(3), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.5399/PJCP.v5i3.1
Roces, M. (2021). The Filipino migration experience: Global agents of change. Cornell University Press.
Rodriguez, R. M. (2010). Migrants for export: How the Philippine state brokers labor to the world. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816665273.001.0001
Stark, O., & Bloom, D. E. (1985). The new economics of labor migration. The American Economic Review, 75(2), 173–178. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1805591
Suárez-Orozco, C., & Suárez-Orozco, M. M. (2001). Children of immigration (The Developing Child). Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674044128
Thomassen, B. (2010). ‘Second generation immigrants’ or ‘Italians with immigrant parents’? Italian and European perspectives on immigrants and their children. Bulletin of Italian Politics, 2(1), 21–44.
Tigno, J. V. (2000). The Philippine overseas employment program: Public policy management from Marcos to Ramos. Public Policy, 4(2), 37–86. https://cids.up.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Philippine-Overseas-Employment-Program-vol.4-no.2-July-Dec-2000-3.pdf
Titzmann, P. F., Silbereisen, R. K., & Mesch, G. (2014). Minor delinquency and immigration: A longitudinal study among male adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 271–282. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032666
Topali, P. (2024). Failed schemes of relatedness in domestic work: Filipina domestic workers in Greece. Anthropology of Work Review, 45(2), 89–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/awr.12275
Tyner, J. A. (2002). The globalization of transnational labor migration and the Filipino family: A narrative. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 11(1), 95–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/011719680201100105
Wilkinson, S. (1998). Focus group methodology: A review. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 1(3), 181–203. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.1998.10846874
Wolf, D. L. (1997). Family secrets: Transnational struggles among children of Filipino immigrants. Sociological Perspectives, 40(3), 457–482. https://doi.org/10.2307/1389452
Zentella, A. C. (1997). Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Blackwell Publishers.
Zhou, M., & Bankston, C. L., III. (1998). Growing up American: How Vietnamese children adapt to life in the United States. Russell Sage Foundation. https://doi.org/10.7758/9781610445689
Zisakou, A., Figgou, L., & Baka, A. (2025). Future plans and integration in the Greek cities: Time as a resource and implication of belonging in refugees’ discourse. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 31(2), 132–140. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000703


