In view of the 23rd IMISCOE annual conference to be held on 29 June - 2 July 2026 in Girona and online on the topic of “Strengthening Migration studies through community engagement”, we are gathering papers for the panel proposal below on "Experimental Approaches to Labor Migration".
Panel Organisers: Pau Palop-García, German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM Institute; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Julia Reinold, Erasmus University Rotterdam (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Deadline for abstract submission: 15 September 2025
Panel abstract: In many European countries, labor migration has become a central topic of both political debate and public opinion. While policymakers increasingly acknowledge the economic need for migrant workers, public attitudes toward labor migration remain deeply ambivalent, shaped by concerns about social cohesion, economic competition, and broader debates on immigration. At the same time, labor migration is also strongly influenced by policies, institutional frameworks, and organizational practices that affect both the opportunities and decisions of migrants themselves. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for scholarly research and evidence-based policymaking.
This panel brings together contributions that employ (survey) experimental methods to study labor migration in various dimensions. We welcome papers that investigate public attitudes, perceptions, and policy preferences, but also those that focus on other aspects such as hiring practices, discrimination, and the decision-making processes of migrants and employers. By using experimental designs, the papers provide novel insights into causal mechanisms underlying labor migration and how these are shaped by contextual factors such as labor shortages, narratives about migration, policy frameworks, or firm-level practices.
In line with the conference theme of community-engaged research, the panel particularly welcomes contributions that link experimental findings to the concerns of migrant communities, employers, or policymakers, or that explore how experiments can be designed in dialogue with stakeholders.
We invite papers based on experimental approaches that engage with themes surrounding labor migration, including (but not limited to):· Attitudes toward labor and skilled migration
- Labor market opportunities of migrant workers
- Decision-making factors of labor migrants
- Methodological innovations in survey experiments on labor migration.
The panel aims to foster a comparative and methodologically informed discussion, advancing our understanding of how labor migration across Europe and beyond is perceived, negotiated, and shaped in times of demographic change and economic need.
We kindly invite you to send your abstract (max. 250 words) and the name(s), affiliation(s), and contact details of all author(s)to the panel organizers via email by 15 September 2025.
