Globalisation and Migration Networks

Abstract

Large informal sectors have existed in Third World cities since at least 1945 (Light, 1983). However until about 1973 urban informal sectors existed only in the cities of the Third World (Castells and Portes, 1989, pp. 18–25), not in cities of the developed world. Times have changed. Since the early 1970s immigrant-dominated informal sectors have developed in large cities in North America and Western Europe.² True, these informal sectors are only a fraction of the size of those in the Third World and they have not expanded into squatter suburbs, as happened in the Third World — but they do now exist. Although the informal sectors of the developed world contain both immigrants and non-immigrants, immigrants are drastically overrepresented and constitute the majority (Waldinger, 1996b). Therefore if all the immigrants were repatriated tomorrow, the informal sectors of the developed countries would drastically shrink, but they would continue to exist.

The author acknowledges with thanks a small grant from the Center for German and European Studies at the University of California. Thanks are also extended to David Lopez, Jan Rath and Georges Sabagh for critical suggestions on an earlier draft.