Southern Europeans in the United Kingdom

Southern Europeans living in the United Kingdom have resided in the country for many centuries, with significant numbers arriving in the first two decades of the 21st-century. The group can usually trace back full or partial heritage to Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and other countries geographically or ethnoculturally related to Southern Europe.

Southern Europeans in the United Kingdom

Total population
Greek - 39,700 (2015 UN estimate) Italian - 151,790 (2015 UN estimate) Portuguese - 98,967 (2015 UN estimate) Spanish - 91,179 (2015 UN estimate)
Regions with significant populations
London, Manchester, Birmingham
Languages
British English Greek · Italian · Portuguese · Spanish Other Southern European Languages
Religion
Christianity, Non-religious, others
Related ethnic groups
Southern Europeans · Southern European Americans · Southern European Australians · Southern European Canadians

In diasporic identification, people with ancestry in Southeastern Europe, such as South Slavic nations, are also sometimes included in the pan-ethnic grouping. As Slavs, they are also frequently identified as Eastern European Britons. Similar identification occurs with Southern European Canadians and Southern European Americans in North America, and Southern European Australians in Oceania.

Terminology

With Southern European not being used as a category used in official statistics in the United Kingdom, the term for the group has a similar status to Southeast Asians and East Asians in the United Kingdom, or the culturally related group; Eastern Europeans in the United Kingdom.[1] Use of the regional category is prevalent in British media and academic research in the classicification of Southern Europeans as a distinct pan-ethnic group in the UK.[2][3]

Demographics

Southern Europeans have been historically drawn to large economies in Northwestern Europe, such as the United Kingdom, as well as Germany and France. In the 21st-century, this has been accelerated by the European Union, and a lack of jobs in Mediterranean European nations, brought on by events such as the 2009 Euro crisis.

Education

Southern Europeans, who have resettled in the country since the advent of EU freedom of movement, have been noted to be skilled, or tertiary educated, to a notable proportion.[4] This has been sometimes contrasted with Eastern Europeans in the United Kingdom, who have been described as predominately seeking higher wages, compared with Southern Europeans migrants' desire for advanced career opportunities.[5]

Employment

The United Kingdom has been described as an attractive destination for Southern European workers,[6] including young and tertiary educated members of the group.[4] In the 2010s, tens of thousands of the group settled in London for work.[7]

In a 2016 study, the UK (alongside Germany) was found to be the most attractive nation for the pan-ethnic group for work and settlement, ahead of France.[8] 2019 research concurred that Southern European youths were disproportionately drawn to the economy of London (and Berlin) since 2008. Such was the attraction of London's job market, the group were shown to accept poorer employment conditions, rather than return home.[9]

History

Due to intra-European trade and commerce, the group have maintained a presence in Britain for over 750 years. In 1255, chronicler Matthew Paris had written that London was “overflowing” with Southern Europeans, referencing “Poitevins, Provençals, Italians and Spaniards.”[10] According to research conducted by the Centre for European Policy Studies at Brighton Business School, "low-skilled" migration of Southern Europeans had been in decline until the early 1990s. From that time period through to 2010, this element of labour increased gradually, while highly skilled or educated members of the group arriving in the UK increased dramatically by 10-fold.[11]

Euro crisis

Since EU integration and freedom of movement of workers, Southern Europeans began arriving in more significant numbers. After the Euro crisis in 2009, job prospects were severely affected in Southern Europe, forcing many young and educated Southern Europeans to seek better employment opportunities in other areas, particularly Northwestern Europe. At times, this resulted in educated members of the group working in occupations below their qualification or skill-level in the United Kingdom.[12]

Brexit

The June 2016 Brexit referendum created some complications for Southern Europeans resident in the United Kingdom. With the result to leave the EU, the group faced residential and legal uncertainty and identity issues in the country.[3] Drawing on Horizon Europe data, a 2019 study in Social Inclusion journal also examined perceptions of post-Brexit belonging among Southern Europeans, conducting 160 in-depth interviews with Italians and Spaniards in the United Kingdom (and in Germany):[13]

Typically, more recent studies show that the sense of belonging of intra-EU mobile persons in the UK has been disrupted by the uncertainty surrounding the UK withdrawal procedure, and the feeling of exclusion from British society (Botterill & Hancock, 2019; McCarthy,2019; Ranta & Nancheva, 2019). Their possible attachment to the UK, developed in previous years, has been challenged.

Cultural influence

In art

Artist Frank Reynolds depicted Southern Europeans, in a 1920 drawing for Punch magazine, as swarthy and unusually small, in comparison with a tall, imposing English policeman.[14]

Social and political issues

Integration

2017 research has suggested that the group detach themselves from the status, or self-categorisation, of being an immigrant. The phenomenon appeared to be specific to people from founding (or early) member states of the European Union.[15] Academic interpretations have proposed that the group express or diminish their various national identities based upon perception of British outlooks on various South European ethnicities.[3]

See also

• Southern European Americans
• Southern European Australians
• Southern European Canadians
• Southern European people

References

1. Claudia Roscini (2017), "Glossary", Multiculturalism Caveat: Potential Antecedents of Intergroup and Acculturation Attitudes, University of Greenwich, p. xix, Minority Group: The cultural and ethnic minorities in the country in which acculturation takes place(i.e. Asians or Eastern and Southern Europeans in the UK).
2. "AMEC Network Start-up Workshop: Mobilities in Times of Economic Crisis" (PDF). Lisbon: IMISCOE. 27 February 2014. Majella Kilkey & Roxana Barbulescu (The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK) – Crisis-influenced mobilities: the re-emergence of ‘South’-‘North’ intra-European labour mobility. Southern Europeans in the UK.
3. "Articulating identity options: Eastern and Southern European migrants in Britain". St Antony's College, Oxford: University of Oxford. 27 February 2019. I relate the different ways in which East and South European migrants articulated their identities to the British context of reception, and the positive or negative discourses surrounding specific ethnicities and migrant groups. I also discuss how the EU Referendum potentially reshuffled these hierarchies and representations.
4. Alessio D’Angelo; Eleonore Kofman (2016), "UK: Large-Scale European Migration and the Challenge to EU Free Movement", South-North Migration of EU Citizens in Times of Crisis, Springer Publishing, p. 175-192, ISBN 978-3319397610, The UK’s opening up to the new member states was seen as a means of reorienting immigration for less skilled jobs from third country nationals to Eastern Europeans. However, less noticed was the concurrent growing immigration of Southern Europeans. With the deepening effects of the economic crisis and welfare cuts since 2010, the numbers of Italians and Spanish migrants registered for work have risen sharply. Today the UK is the first destination country for young, and often tertiary educated, Southern European migrants.
5. David Milliken (22 August 2019). "Immigration to Britain falls to five-year low ahead of Brexit: ONS". Reuters. Immigration to Britain from the rest of the European Union surged after the euro zone debt crisis in 2012, as southern Europeans sought better job opportunities in Britain, on top of east Europeans seeking higher wages.
6. Alvin Chang (June 24, 2016). "Brexit: why Britain left the EU, explained with a simple cartoon". Vox Media. As my colleague Zack Beauchamp writes, "The British labor market was relatively easy to break into, and lots of people across Europe speak English, so it was a natural target for these Southern Europeans."
7. "Southern Europeans flock to UK for jobs". EURACTIV. September 23, 2016. Britain, and especially London, has become a popular place for tens of thousands of southern Europeans in search of work as the governments of Spain, Portugal and Italy continue to impose austerity measures.
8. Tatiana Eremenko; Nora El Qadim; Elsa Steichen (2016), "Southern Europeans in France: Invisible Migrants?", South-North Migration of EU Citizens in Times of Crisis, Springer Publishing, p. 123-148, ISBN 978-3319397610, The current economic crisis does not appear to have changed this evolution and France has not emerged as an important destination for Southern European migrants as have Germany and the UK ... Although their numbers have increased and represent a growing proportion of recent flows to France (Brutel 2014), they remain low compared to numbers in Germany and the UK ... As mentioned earlier, we observe an increase of the three groups of Southern Europeans since the crisis: in the period 2006–2011, the number of recent migrants from Southern Europe living in France increased from around 53,000 to 78,000, with a particularly strong increase for Portugal (+15,000) (Table 8.3).
9. Iraklis Dimitriadis; Giovanna Fullin; Maricia Fischer-Souan (2019), "Great Expectations? Young Southern Europeans Emigrating in Times of Crisis", Mondi Migranti, FrancoAngeli, p. 127-151, In addition, it sheds light on the perceptions that young Italians and Spaniards have of the Berlin and London labour markets. The findings suggest that positive images of the Berlin and London economies, together with a lack of hope for sustainable economic recovery in the country of origin impact migration decisions, and may also encourage migrants who face challenges in the labour market of destination countries to accept poor employment conditions, rather than leave the new society.
10. Peter Ackroyd (2000). "Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner". London: The Biography. Chatto & Windus. ISBN 978-0099422587. There were, however, occasions of criticism. “I do not at all like that city,” Richard of Devizes complained in 1185. “All sorts of men crowd there from every country under the heavens. Each brings its own vices and its own customs to the city.” In 1255 the monkish chronicler Matthew Paris was bemoaning the fact that London was “overflowing” with “Poitevins, Provençals, Italians and Spaniards.”
11. Akgüç, M.; M. Beblavý (2015), Re-emerging Migration Patterns: Structures and Policy Lessons, CROME: Centre for European Policy Studies, p. 22, In the case of UK, looking at Southern European migrants in Figure 7 shows that until 1990s there has been a decrease in low-skilled, which constitute the major share compared to other skill groups, and a gradual increase afterwards. However, even more striking is the sharp increase (almost 10-fold) in the stock of high-skilled migrants from Southern Europe from around 10,000 in early 1990s reaching more than 100,000 in 2010. Although this figure is dwarfed compared to hose of migrants from non-EU, it still highlights the important change in the skill composition of Southern Europeans in the UK.
12. Helen N.J. McCarthy (2019), "Spanish nationals' future plans in the context of Brexit", Population, Space and Place - Special Issue: Negotiating Brexit: Migrant spatialities and identities in a changing Europe (Volume 25 ed.), Wiley, Southern Europeans forced to "escape" unemployment in their home country and arriving in the United Kingdom to work in jobs below their qualification.
13. Quassoli, Fabio; Dimitriadis, Iraklis (2019), "Here, There, in between, beyond…": Identity Negotiation and Sense of Belonging among Southern Europeans in the UK and Germany (Volume 7 ed.), Social Inclusion, p. 341-351, This article draws on data from a Horizon 2020-funded research project on intra-EU mobility that aimed to explore migrants’ lived experiences (Growth,Equal Opportunities, Migration and Markets [GEMM] project). Between November 2016 and June 2017, 160 in-depth interviews were carried out with Italian and Spanish migrants in the UK and Germany.
14. Michael L. Ross (2006). "The London Charivari". Race Riots: Comedy and Ethnicity in Modern British Fiction. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0773531093. Southern Europeans in England enjoyed no exemption from Punchs parochial laughter, as witness the Frank Reynolds drawing of 10 March 1920, in which a tall, swaggering policeman accosts a diminutive, swarthy, doubtless Italian street-musician
15. Mazzilli, Caterina; King, Russell (2019), ""What have I done to deserve this?". Young Italian migrants in Britain narrate their reaction to Brexit and plans to the future", Rivista Geografica Italiana, Nabu Press, p. 507-523, Our interviewees were aware that, coming from one of the founder-members of the EU, they have long held the right to be freely mobile within Europe, and hence regard themselves as “old” migrants enjoying, until now, relative “invisibility” in the UK (Colpi, 2017; Favell, 2008; Ricucci, 2017). Moreover, Ricucci (2017) points out that, during her research on young Southern European migrants in London, not a single one of her interviewees used the word “migrant” or “immigrant”, thus deliberately detaching themselves from this category.