MIGRATION – AN EPISODE OR A STAGE IN ONE’S WORK LIFE?

Abstract

The article deals with the interweaving relations between two types of social mobility: socio-occupational mobility, understood as the sequencing of an occupational career, and international geographical mobility. The introduction points to methodological challenges in conducting such analyses which demand an interplay of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Subsequent sections present both of them. The quantitative perspective facilitates the analysis of the sequence of job positions in Poland and act/s of migration. The occupational careers are divided into two types: stable and changeable. This approach allows for the analysis of occupational careers of migrants in comparison to the careers of the non-migrant population. The second part of the article explains the meaning of migration for the occupational lives of the people involved. This meaning may differ due to the various socio-economic opportunity structures of migrants and their own refl ections on the role of migration in their work life