The roles of migrant networks in the labour market trajectories of Senegalese men in Europe

This paper examines the impact of migrant networks on the labour market trajectories of Senegalese men in Europe. The general assumption in the literature is that membership in co-ethnic networks enhances immigrants’ employment opportunities at destination. This assumption has increasingly been challenged on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Using longitudinal data recently collected within the framework of the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE) project, this paper is able to avoid usual biases, such as reverse causality. Moreover, the transnational nature of the sample - Senegalese current and return migrants were interviewed in France, Italy, Spain and Senegal - allows for investigating the influence of the context of reception in the functioning of networks. Findings reveal a heterogenous picture, as effects depend on the context of destination, the time since arrival and the legal status of the migrant. Having close kin at destination enables legal migrants to engage in a longer job search. Both kin and friends increase chances of gaining access to semi or skilled employment and protect from the more precarious status of self-employment in France, but do not have the same effects in Italy or Spain, where the Senegalese community is more recent and less diverse in terms of socio-economic status.