Comparison of the postwar and post-cold war generations of temporary foreign worker admissions

Abstrakti

Temporary foreign worker (TFW) policies have for a long time constituted an important part of international labor migration. Between 1945 and 1973 Northern European countries admitted millions of low-skilled temporary workers from Southern Europe and North Africa. Following the oil crisis of 1973-1974 the admissions of new temporary foreign workers to most Northern European countries were curbed. Nevertheless, in the early 1990s Germany pioneered a new set of temporary foreign worker admission agreements with Central and Eastern European countries. Shortly thereafter, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Italy and Spain began to admit foreign workers.