Identidades en tránsito: mujeres altamente formadas del Europa del Este en trabajos encajados en el País Vasco

The international migration is a changing process linked to both economic and socio-political transformations, which impact the migratory career of the women on the move. Migrant women, traditionally, are submerged in complex structure of power and oppression, which demand a de/reconstruction process of their personal and professional identities, and socio-political subject in action. In highly educated women, individual challenges for balancing personal, relational and professional aspirations are based on the interplay of different structures of opportunities and constrains. Thus, they have to apply different coping strategies to overcome barriers and access to new opportunities, in order to achieve a migratory project in line with their pre-migratory aspirations and professional identity profiles. By exploring not lineal migratory careers in highly educated women from East European countries at a macro (structures of opportunities and constrains), meso (networks), and micro (personal aspirations, imaginaries) dimensions, we seek to understand the way they achieve a job-education matching in the Basque Country socio-occupational context. Some findings show that structural problems and professional aspirations are inputs for emigration. In the Basque Country respondents experienced temporary overqualification and deskilling, during the first phase of immigration, due to structural barriers (homologation; work/resident permits; lack of knowledge of the language). The main strategies they use for labour market incorporation are “bridge-works” in gendered care and service sectors, mostly in moonlighting way; mixing study and work; and try to manage the homologation process. Other strategies are up-skilling; re-orientation of professional careers; or recapitalization of their personal and professional competencies. At micro level, resilience and biographical agency are stressed.