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What will you talk about within the scope of the event?

Javier Polavieja (JP): We will talk about the silent revolution our country has experienced as a result of immigration flows unprecedented in our modern history. The arrival of immigrants offers enormous opportunities for one of the oldest populations in the world. However, our ability as a country to fully take advantage of these opportunities depends on the socio-occupational success of the second generation (the children of immigrants), which is now starting to join our workforce. We will argue that the challenges these “new Spaniards” face are crucial for our country and that their success depends to a large extent on the sustainability of the welfare system and our capacity for economic growth in the future. In particular, I will focus on the problem of labor discrimination and the importance that studying discrimination from a comparative perspective has.

Javier Lorenzo (JL): In my case, I must say that very often we hear declarations from our public representatives about the mobility of our young people in Europe and the effects or determinants that make them leave, or prevent them from doing so. The phenomenon of youth mobility is due to many factors and is not always forced, but it is not always desired, either. Moreover, there is a great diversity of reasons for this mobility, not only among Spanish youth, but also among the different territories that make up the European Union. What I want to pose is a series of questions that makes the audience think about this matter, questions that make them react, think about what is happening around them, what we can and must demand of our institutions, governments and representatives.

What is the main goal of your research projects?

(JL): The main goal of my project, called MOVE, is to draw of map of youth mobility in Europe, identifying the patterns of mobility, the paths to pursue, the role that institutions play and the structural effects that condition this mobility among young European people between the ages of 18 and 29 in the countries under examination in the study: Germany, Spain, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway and Russia.

(JP): In the case of the GEMM project, the goal is to identify the mechanisms of discrimination that operate in the processes of labor contracting for the second generation of immigrants in five European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain), using an innovative methodology (the experiment of comparative field work). This methodology allows us to identify the role of the origin, the phenotype, the gender and the religion of second-generation youths who are looking for work in these five countries, and whether these factors have any influence on the probability of their being hired when compared with children of native parents who share the same characteristics. We can also estimate the degree of discrimination that different ethnic groups suffer in each country. This will help us better understand what barriers impede the successful integration of the second generation and design public policies that will help dismantle them.

What results do you hope to obtain?

(JP): I hope to obtain accurate estimators of discrimination for different ethnic groups, identify what role origin and phenotype play, whether there are differences between men and women and whether the discrimination of these groups diminishes when we introduce accurate estimators of productivity on the resumes of job applicants. This last one is important because the discrimination might be due more to employers’ lack of information than to the existence of xenophobic attitudes cemented in prejudice. My team and I also expect to find important differences among countries, although with only five national cases, it is not possible to unequivocally identify which specific national factors might influence these differences.

(JL): In our case, first of all, we hope to better understand the young people who have migrated to other EU countries. This is a population about which much is said and rather little is known, among other reasons, because there are no official records. Secondly, we’re hoping to identify the factors that make them leave or which make them stay put, both pre-existing conditions such as psychosocial aspects or institutional or financial policies that would allow them to leave, stay or return in better conditions. We do all of this with the intention of providing a series of recommendations to our public representatives to design new policies that improve existing conditions, strengthen the positive aspects of mobility and reduce the inequalities among young people.

What is your main line of research?

(JL): Comparative politics, that is, the study and functioning of institutions and their political and electoral systems and parties, especially in European Union countries and the United States. Within this, I have focused especially on the impact that information and communication technologies (the Internet and social networks) have had, have and will have on the development of these institutions and political and social behavior. The analysis of this subject matter and the evolution of study methodologies and techniques that the technologies themselves have been developing have also led me to specialize in Big Data and computational techniques for analysis. This technological inclination leads me to concern myself especially with the behavior of young people, given that they are the current and future designers of digital society.

(JP): Essentially, I work on the study of the processes of social stratification, that is, how socioeconomic inequalities are produced and how they are passed from one generation to the next, with a special interest in the functioning of labor markets. For example, I am very interested in the role that the transmission of values, attitudes and social norms between parents and children plays in gender inequality; labor dualism; attitudes about immigration (and the role that exposure to labor competition plays in them); processes of discrimination; and also methodological matters, especially advances in statistical techniques of causal identification.

When did you realize that you wanted to study these kinds of subjects? Or, said another way, how did your scientific vocation come into being?

(JP): I think I’ve always had a scientific vocation. In fact, I think we’re all born with a scientific vocation.  Asking questions about how the world works is what children do all the time (I have a three-year-old son who always asks “Why?”). The question we perhaps should ask is what is happening in our environment and our education system that makes children lose their curiosity when they get older. I didn’t lose it (maybe I haven’t grown up yet). I studied pure sciences in high school because I wanted to be a biologist. At the same time, I was always very interested in politics and society. In the last two years of high school, I became deeply involved in student movements (I’m talking about the late 1980s). I wanted to change the world, but I didn’t know how it worked. To change things, you need to know how they work, so, somewhat surprisingly, when I finished high school, I decided to study Sociology instead of Biology.

(JL): Technologies are to blame for my scientific vocation. The first one is the TV, because thanks to it, as a child, I could follow events like the NATO referendum and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Seeing the world on the screen allowed me to observe many differences, not only artistic ones, but also social, cultural and political ones. That constant wondering about the “why” behind these differences led me to study Political Science. The second technology responsible for my investigative vocation was the Internet and the emergence of new technologies. That opened a wonderful field for exploring their effects on the behavior of institutions and societies. It opened a new universe in which to investigate how to improve our political and social coexistence.

As you know, Researchers Night is held simultaneously in more than 340 European cities. Do you think these pan-European initiatives can influence the perception that citizens have of researchers?

(JL): Without a doubt. The EU intends for it to be a communal space of values, of ethical principles, in addition to a space for joint development and sharing knowledge. We have not worked on this last part for much time, and all the activities done in joint efforts should be made known. Experiences should be shared by disseminating the great scientific activity carried out in our territories and the immense network of research created between our member countries.

(JP): I hope so. The goal is, of course, praiseworthy. What is important is to transmit the need for the average citizen to be able to understand basic points of scientific language. In the case of social sciences, the disconnection between the work we do and the citizenry (and politics) is evident, and this is reflected in the extremely poor quality of public debate. Scientific culture makes better citizens and increases the level of demand on our politicians.

What do you think of European Researchers Night Madrid?

(JP): I think it’s a great initiative. We need to foster the scientific vocations of our students in Madrid because our ability to grow in the future depends on our ability to innovate, and also because the image of the researcher that is projected socially has traditionally not been very attractive. We need to increase the number of scientific vocations and reduce the gender gap. Any initiative that presents the researcher as a “normal” person and which shows that researching is in fact a lot of fun and gratifying is a great initiative.

(JL): In my opinion, it’s excellent. All initiatives oriented to the dissemination of science, to the spreading of knowledge produced in research centers and shared with citizens, social groups, companies, governments and any social agent, are fundamental for all researchers. Sharing knowledge is an indispensable requirement for all advanced, progressive societies, and I think that interaction between researchers and the aforementioned social agents is decisive for this. These actions serve not only to make our activity known, but also to get feedback in the way of ideas, questions, doubts and matters to solve so that we can continue to grow and improve.

Practical Information:

• Title of event: Europe Moves: Migration and European Construction
• Organized by: UC3M Vice-Rectorate of Communication and Culture
• Place: Auditorium on the UC3M Leganés campus
• Time: 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.
• Are reservations necessary?: Yes, as of September 19th, through the website
• More information: www.uc3m.es/nocheinvestigadores2017