4.1. Instrumental Agency: Agency in Education Is an Important Tool for Navigating Difficult Labor Market Conditions
Education is a key area of integration and social mobility. For a “newcomer”, access to education, especially free public education, presents many challenges. In Hungary, state institutions are not obliged to admit anyone beyond the age of compulsory education (sixteen years of age). In Poland, foreigners can attend schools or other educational institutions until the age of eighteen and have the same rights as citizens. Higher education at public universities is free for Poles, citizens of EU Member States, and foreigners with a “Pole’s card” (Karta Polaka, a document issued to people who can prove their Polish roots and some knowledge of Polish) or a residence card.
In both countries, but particularly in Hungary, knowledge of the language may constitute a significant barrier, and since free language education is rare (some courses are organized by local NGOs), migrants who cannot afford language courses at market prices find it difficult to enter education. In Poland, the vast majority of migrants come from Slavic countries, which are culturally and linguistically similar, but the language barrier is mentioned as a challenge.
Considering that qualifications acquired in third countries are not recognised, obtaining a diploma improves one’s chances in the labor market. However, as the following stories show, foreigners who do not have the required (permanent) residence permit must pay tuition fees. Some cannot afford this; others are forced to combine studies with at least a part-time job. Moreover, educational qualifications from TCN countries are not recognised in Hungary. For example, a Hungarian primary school leaving certificate is required to obtain a driving license (and the lack of such a certificate may limit opportunities in the labor market), while the Hungarian baccalaureate exempts the applicant from the history and citizenship exam required as part of the citizenship procedure or shortens the application procedure.
Two case studies that focus on education illustrate how migrants overcome these challenges to achieve their educational goals, which facilitates their embedding in the host countries.
4.1.1. Vlad and Boyko
Vlad (eighteen years old) and Boyko (nineteen) are brothers who come from Ukraine. After the war in Donbas, their parents started to consider emigration. In 2017, they came to Poland with Vlad, fourteen at the time, to register him for high school in Poland. He did not know the language, so was rejected by several schools, but finally managed to find one. He lived in a boarding house and one of the educators was his legal guardian. First grade was difficult because of the language barrier and age difference (in Ukraine, children start school earlier; he was 2–3 years younger than the others). Nevertheless, he devoted a lot of time to learning the language and vocabulary and to his beloved hobby—sailing boats—and managed to pass the exams for the first grade, though not without problems. During high school, he was motivated to work hard as he realized that “high school is already a path to university”. Living in Poland on his own as a minor turned out to be more difficult than expected, so after a year, his father joined him, and they rented a small apartment together. In addition to attending school, Vlad worked in the construction business with his father. “Unfortunately, I don’t do sailing now; I wanted to earn money for my studies and other things. I bought a laptop, but it has very little memory, so I need to buy several extra drives. Generally, it would be better to have a desktop computer, but I didn’t have this opportunity because we don’t have a cable internet connection, we use our SIM cards, so I chose a laptop, and it works”. The lack of a stable internet connection made it difficult for him to attend all of his school classes during the pandemic.
After a few more months, the rest of the family (Boyko—Vlad’s brother, his mother, and a younger sister) joined them, and they all moved into a house in a nearby small village. Boyko, who had already started learning Polish in Ukraine, started studying marine engineering at one of the good universities in a neighboring city. Vlad wanted to study at the same university but had to choose another one (less prestigious, but cheaper). He explains, “I thought I could study for free because I graduated from high school here, but they told me I could not study because I do not have a residence card, and I have been waiting for [it] for over three years, almost three-and-a-half years. I have sent reminders, I have written to them, I have gone to the offices, I have asked how my case is going, and they always answer me: ‘Yes, yes, it will be done soon’.”
At the time of the interviews, during the summer break, both brothers were working full time in a kebab restaurant, but they both knew that they could not combine this job with their studies as their shift finishes at one or two in the morning. In the future, both brothers would like to settle in northern Poland, close to where they currently live. Boyko, who also took up sailing in Ukraine, plans to design ships or work in a shipyard. Vlad, who is interested in Japanese manga and is studying multimedia and graphic design, dreams of making cartoons in the future.
Vlad’s and Boyko’s migration paths reveal strategic planning to improve their life chances in the long term by obtaining a higher-education diploma in the EU. They realized this plan required sacrifices in the short term, such as the parting of family members during a period of transnational life, coping with difficult economic and housing situations, and giving up sports, etc. We stress that their individual agencies and determination to pursue an educational path are supported by their parents, who struggle with precarious legal situations. The difficult economic situation of the family forces the boys to work to earn money for their studies and other needs, such as a computer. Both brothers reported that they spend a lot of time at home with their family when not at work or university and do not have too much contact with their peers. In their narratives, we see the constraints posed by structural (legal and economic) conditions on the one hand, and on the other, how young migrants’ agency manifests in the persistent, step-by-step pursuit of educational aspirations.
4.1.2. James
James (32) arrived in Hungary in 2014 from the Middle-East. He had abandoned his university studies back home before coming to Europe. He had work experience from working in his father’s company as a sales representative. After his arrival, he lived in different reception centers for over a year before he received refugee status. Even then, without money, work, a place to live, or knowing the language, his situation was not easy. From the beginning, he made sure he used any opportunity to learn the language. He signed up for all language courses advertised by civil organizations to help refugees and migrants. These were ad hoc, primarily based on the availability of funding. James understood that studying and being in education would improve his chances of integration, becoming acquainted with people, and learning about the country he had arrived in. Soon he also realized that having educational certificates would open up doors to further opportunities. “I was happy because I could learn […] without paying money. And I also joined some Hungarian language courses with some NGOs. I tried to grab all opportunities to develop myself, to upgrade myself, to integrate into society. As I joined these courses, my English became better; I also found friends in Budapest… Hungarian or other foreigners”.
James joined several Hungarian language courses run by NGOs. In the context of such limited resources, he might be considered “lucky”, but his rapid exploitation of such opportunities had more to do with his previous education and his sense of the value of education for social mobility (in Bourdeausian terms, he was endowed with sufficient cultural capitals from earlier periods of life). Becoming acquainted the activities of these civil organizations and listening to what they had to offer, he quickly learned about further educational opportunities, subject to his Hungarian- and English-language knowledge. At a local international university, a weekend adult education program provided asylum seekers and refugees with information about various areas of life in Hungary and a space for exchange, friendship, and belonging. Here, James also attended courses on creative writing and theatre since the former is his passion and hobby. At a local Hungarian NGO, he also learned about an opportunity to attend evening classes at a local gymnasium to obtain a “matura” (a secondary school leaving exam). As this document is crucial for obtaining better job opportunities and accessing higher education in Hungary, James decided to enroll in these classes. After a year of learning, he passed his exams in all subjects. After his matura, another opportunity came his way. “One day, a friend asked me, ‘Do you want to learn how to drive a bus?’. And I was thinking, [no!], no one in my family knows how to drive a bus. He [my friend] said, ‘no, there is an opportunity, you can join, learn it, it’s for six months, and they will already pay you not a full salary but something’.”
He joined the course, and although his Hungarian was still not up to the mark, the instructors helped him. “In the beginning, I could only say, ‘Hi, I’m James’, but that was it. So it was a big challenge. [laughs]. I had six or seven exams in Hungarian; it was a big challenge. When the trainer put up pictures and talked about them, about KRESZ [the highway code], I used my phone, and I got them translated.” James became a driver for the local transport company in Budapest. He is liked by his colleagues and passengers, but he finds the responsibility too much. Momentarily, he is happy with his job, but he has further ambitions. He wants to return to higher education. “I have a dream of studying at a university again. I don’t want to be a driver forever, you know. I want to study and learn something new.”
Despite being in his early thirties, he does not feel too old to be a student again and recognizes the importance of obtaining a higher education diploma too. His immediate goal was to obtain Hungarian citizenship, for which he applied several months before the research interview was recorded. Being a student would also mean being mobile again and traveling freely in the world.
In James’ case, his agency in the area of education evolved relatively straightforwardly because of several “positive circumstances” (a combination of specific actors and situations, timing, and locality) in an otherwise hostile environment. First, he received support from NGOs and grassroots learning initiatives to further his studies (learning Hungarian, joining a professional driving course, and improving his soft skills in creative writing). Receiving support from civil society worked because of his attitude towards studying (formed priorly) and his firm ideas about the importance of education in his embedding process.
Through James’ story, we can study the evolution of individual agency, albeit limited due to the challenging immigration context. The “positive circumstances” listed above and his pre-existing disposition (various cultural capitals) contributed to its evolution. Being in the right place (moving from a countryside reception center to the capital city, where most NGOs are active) and following the “correct” sequence of steps (that is, appropriate strategic thinking) in and throughout the education process correspond to the instrumental character of agency. In this concrete case, it meant attending language courses in Hungarian, obtaining a Hungarian secondary school leaving exam, and enrolling in a professional course to become a driver. These steps proved crucial from the perspective of evolving (limited) agency and the embedding process.
4.2. Evolving Agencies of Migrant Youth in the Labor Market
Accessing the Hungarian labor market is not easy for a recently arrived, young third-country national. Besides legal issues (only recognized refugees and people under subsidiary protection can obtain a work permit), the language is a significant obstacle since most Hungarian employers look for Hungarian speakers. State-level recognition of foreign, non-EU diplomas, and qualifications is another obstacle. Discrimination and racism occur in all segments of the labor market and emerge in various forms. Young, non-European migrants who do not speak the language or have connections to mainstream society soon realize that they have been left to their own devices (i.e., must rely on their own networks) and the least lucrative segments of the labor market (i.e., precarious forms of employment).
In Poland, the situation of young third-country nationals is somewhat better, as obtaining a work permit with either a permanent residence card or some kind of international protection status is possible. Moreover, despite its anti-immigration rhetoric, the government has introduced several initiatives for attracting migrants from neighboring countries to the Polish labor market. One of these is the so-called “simplified procedure”, which allows foreigners from several countries (including Ukraine and Belarus) to obtain employment without having to apply for a work permit. However, migrants with temporary residence cards or those employed by employment agencies are often in a very precarious situation. The biggest challenges for young migrants in the labor market are the lengthy procedures, becoming stuck in manual, low-paid jobs, and finding a job that matches their qualifications and aspirations.
4.2.1. Zakaria
Zakaria (35) arrived in Hungary in 2010 from Asia as an asylum seeker. After living in various refugee camps, he received subsidiary protection status for five years from the Hungarian authorities. This status grants access to the labor market, social services, residence permits, etc. After five years, the person under this protection category must reapply for the same status or complete refugee protection. Having obtained this subsidiary protection, Zakaria moved to Budapest in search of a job. A refugee assistance organization helped him find a place to rent, and he shared this with another refugee.
As Zakaria recalls, to find a job, he had to rely on ethnic networks based on regional belonging. After a short search, he was hired by a local Indian restaurant; as a person with subsidiary protection, he was officially entitled to take up employment. However, his income was very meager, hardly enough to survive. One day, he boarded a train to Vienna and looked for employment there, but since this was not legal (his papers allowed him to work only in Hungary), he did not stay for long. Upon his return, he started working for a kebab shop on one of Budapest’s busiest squares. This job lasted for a year. He moved from there to another kebab restaurant but had a personal conflict with the girlfriend of the owner of the enterprise; after this event, Zakaria was sacked and had to look for another job.
He decided to be his own master and open his own shop. By then, he had a Hungarian wife who was against him starting his own business. “I had a lot of warfare with my wife because of the business”. His wife considered him inexperienced, yet he felt confident because of his previous business experience in Pakistan. In the beginning, he did not have enough money to start his own business. An Afghani shop owner, himself a refugee, helped him to start his business on Narcisz Street in Budapest’s district VIII, known as a street full of ethnic enterprises. He gave him a loan and shop equipment and recommended a lawyer who could register the business.
Zakaria opened his first shop in a Chinese market. He began work at 6 a.m. every day. Since he originally had no car, he carried the ingredients to his shop by hand. He was lucky and sales were good, but the local authorities closed the Chinese market after two months. This happened suddenly, and he had not been informed about it in advance, so he had to “rescue” his shop equipment and keep it in his own flat. Fortunately, within a short time, he managed to rent another space for his shop. In 2015, when many asylum seekers suddenly came to Hungary, his kebab shop started to thrive. He had to hire an employee to cope with the rush.
Amidst his repeated efforts to open his own shop, Zakaria had attempted to work abroad a few times, first in Vienna, later in the Netherlands (on a farm), and finally, in Norway (as a truck driver). The large income gap between Norway and Hungary allowed him to return to Hungary with significant savings. However, unfortunately, during his stay in Norway, his marriage broke up, and, no longer married to an EU citizen, it became legally impossible for him to continue to work there.
After his return to Budapest, he bought the first of his current shops on Narcisz street. ‘I’m a very lucky chap!’ He exclaimed when recalling how the former Afghani shopkeeper was in need of cash and had sold the shop to him. His brother, a former guest worker in Dubai, joined him. “At that time, there were only a few shops with ingredients from Asia and the Arabic countries”, said Zakaria, explaining his business niche. Since then, he has opened a restaurant, a laundry shop, and a barber shop on the same street, and a buffet in another part of the city. His family members have come over from Pakistan to help with his businesses. He also employs several young refugees to help them start their lives in Hungary. In the past few years, food from his kitchen has fed hundreds of Indian temporary workers who are employed at large industrial plants near Budapest, thus further expanding his business profile and business revenue.
Zakaria has become a well-known character in his locality with a flourishing business: he organizes an annual cultural and food festival that attracts visitors from around the city. The local municipality recently made him an honorary citizen of the district. Despite his economic success, his legal status is still in limbo. The second renewal of his subsidiary protection was recently rejected. Moreover, his several citizenship applications have failed so far, keeping him in constant distress and anxiety.
Zakaria took an active role in shaping his agency regarding his future and trajectory of integration in Hungary. He started learning Hungarian, moved to the capital city to seek opportunities, and actively reached out for help to other co-ethnics, using regional belonging to establish contacts. His agency in looking for employment reached its full potential via horizontal networks, small acts of help and solidarity among other migrants, refugees, and people who, like Zakaria, were seeking opportunities in a new socioeconomic environment characterized by a hostile integration regime, as introduced at the beginning of this article. This type of agency is characterized by constant searching for points of access and opportunities. Success is usually temporary, punctuated by periods of crisis, loss, and setbacks. This active agency relies on an ability to constantly reinvent oneself, thus reacting to the rigid structure and denied access. In this context, self-reliance is crucial; it is at the core of migrant agency, but seeking partnerships with others in a similar situation is indispensable. Due to his active agency, continuous efforts, and inventive steps, Zakaria’s process of embedding has evolved at a remarkable pace despite the negative structural context and occasional setbacks. However, his unregularized legal status “cancels out” his achievements in the social embedding process since it is the solid basis on which other agencies and navigation strategies are ultimately built.
4.2.2. Maria
Maria, a 23-year-old Ukrainian, came to Poland five years ago (in 2016). She started her occupational path here with “hard physical work”; cleaning. Currently, she is the owner of prospering massage studios and an active Instagrammer. She spoke about her career, involving decision-making processes and consistency in achieving goals: “I’ve always dreamed of opening a massage studio. (…) First, I earned money for my first courses and started learning. I started getting my first clients. I slowly developed my customer base, which helped me open my own small massage room and then a large massage studio”. Answering the question of what is behind its success, Maria mentioned the crucial role of her efforts, commitment, and strength, including her determination and strategic planning for the future. She admitted: “to anyone who [would] open [a company], I can say—be prepared for it because it is some stress, [takes some] nerves… it is a fact. Without this, nothing will happen”.
A significant role in Maria’s story was played by her husband, who strongly supported her with the various formalities related to running a business in Poland (his status as resident helped her open the business) and emotionally. She remembers her beginnings as a young migrant entrepreneur; however, she has normalized the challenges she encountered: “I have experienced ups and downs, ups and downs (…), and there were various situations, probably like in every migrant entrepreneur’s life”. According to Maria, what helped her develop the company was primarily her knowledge, skills, and professionalism, which her clients appreciate. At the same time, Maria emphasized that acquiring clients required struggle –and a lot of patience and time—“Poles don’t always trust specialists when they hear they are Ukrainian or Belarusian”, which is one form of discrimination resulting from the anti-migrant discourse in Poland. As a result, Maria’s first clients were people from the migrant community. Furthermore, the community built by Maria virtually on Instagram supported her after she took a break from the profession due to her pregnancy and the birth of a child: “I didn’t work for almost a year and a half. Customers came back right away, and friends and everyone were very supportive, mostly Russian-speaking [ones]. My blog helped me a lot”.
Maria’s attitude is representative of that of young migrants in the labor market in Poland who build their occupational paths (both as entrepreneurs and employees) based on individual traits (such as resourcefulness, creativity, courage, and drive), personal networks, and the wider community, rarely using institutional forms of support. Summing up her career, Maria said: ‘I’m stubborn in life in general, and it has helped me a lot because I keep going to the end, to victory’. When asked about her career plans, she boldly replied: ‘As of today, my ambitions are very high. (…) I have a dream to open my next business in Berlin. Time will tell. The plans are big; in Poland, I checked how [the business] works, and now I want more’.
Maria’s story demonstrates her “conscious” and developed agency resulting from the belief that she has a decisive impact on her own trajectory. She constantly strategized, engaged in long-term planning, and initiated different activities (e.g., gained new qualifications, created an account on Instagram, and built a strong network of customers), leading to gradual changes in her life. She was not discouraged when things did not go her way, which confirms her capacity to endure adversity and stay focused on goal accomplishment through implementing a well-thought-out plan. Despite her young age, she had mobilized her individual predisposition and sociocultural capital, including communication skills, networking, the ability to plan strategically, management, inventiveness, risk tolerance, and entrepreneurship to create and manage her own business proactively. The migrant community also became a significant source of support that helped Maria spread her wings and fulfill her professional aspirations. Drawing on valuable lessons based on her experience, Maria could make bold plans to develop her business in a different cultural context.
4.3. Aspirational Agency in the Context of Mental Health and Well-Being
The structural challenges associated with pursuing education, being recognized for one’s qualifications, or finding a job that matches one’s interests and aspirations can impact mental health, especially when combined with other factors such as earlier experiences of trauma. In terms of career and mental health, stay-at-home mothers are in a particularly precarious situation as they often feel isolated and have difficulty (re-)entering the labor market after a break of several years. In Poland (esp. in larger cities), NGOs organize workshops or meetings for migrants, including migrant women, to help them find jobs, and offer various forms of psychological help, including psychotherapy and self-help groups.
Shukrona
Shukrona, a twenty-nine-year-old refugee from Tajikistan, has lived in Poland for three years (since 2018) with her husband and three-year-old daughter. Before migrating, she graduated in journalism and studied psychology in Russia. She worked on television financed by the Tajik opposition, hosting a news program. Because of her opposition activities, Shukrona and her journalist husband experienced political harassment, and their lives were put in danger. She admitted: “when I was pregnant, and they started threatening our baby, I couldn’t take it anymore. (…) It was a tough time for me because I didn’t feel safe in my country (…), so we decided to leave to create opportunities for ourselves and our daughter”. The journey of Shukrona’s family to Poland lasted as long as a month due to numerous deportations from Belarus to Russia. During this time, Shukrona was pregnant, which made it more demanding. Because of having to flee her homeland and the accumulated stress, at the beginning of their stay in Poland, Shukrona experienced depressive episodes: “For some time, we lived in a refugee center where there was a lot of noise, there were various conversations between refugees and a lot of stress. When we stopped living there, I slept all day. I didn’t want to get up because I had finally found myself in a safe place without bad emotions. No one told me what I had to do, like ‘go to breakfast at 8 o’clock’. After two weeks, I started to get up somehow and started to recover”.
During the time of the interview, Shukrona was focused on raising her daughter, with whom she spends most of her time. After a few years of taking a professional break, she would like to return to the labor market. At the same time, she was very concerned that she would not be able to find a job in line with her interests and qualifications where she would have development opportunities: “I’m looking for [a job], but I’m afraid it won’t be the job I want, that I won’t like it. I can’t imagine getting up in the morning and going to a job you don’t want and don’t like”. Shukrona emphasized how important professional activity is for her well-being: “I want to be financially independent for [the sake of] my psycho-emotional state. It is important for a woman”.
The prolonged period without a job badly affected Shukrona’s mental health. She feels a lot of uncertainty about her career path and has lost her enthusiasm and motivation to engage in extra-family activities. While fulfilled as a wife and mother, she misses other activities. Shukrona’s husband understands this need very well and supports her return to the labor market by initiating her participation in various meetings. She talked about the empowering effect of one of the workshops in which she had participated: “Recently, I had a nice weekend, without my daughter, without my husband, without my family… such a meeting. I really enjoyed it. I felt like I was on a trip [holiday]. I thanked my husband several times; he signed me up; I didn’t want to go because recently I had no motivation to do anything. (…) It seems I’ve lost my way. I don’t know where to go or what to do. I’m glad I went to this workshop. I heard there [they told me]: ‘you are so energetic, how active you are!’ It turned out that I needed such support”.
The stress Shukrona has experienced over the past few years has harmed her mental and physical health. She has psychosomatic symptoms and severe back pain, which are related to the complex emotions she feels. For self-care, Shukrona eagerly reads the stories of women who are a source of strength and inspiration: “I watch or read biographies of strong women, I watch various interviews with women who have experienced many things, I think I look for answers to my questions in their stories because they also had such [a difficult] time, they survived, they made it all right, I’m looking for motivational support”. Although she did not mention it explicitly, she referred a lot to the idea of sisterhood: “I think it’s very important to find your own community, and I’m sure I have mine. I have a club where I can go with other mums; it’s girls who always give support”.
In addition to an informal support network, an important source of help for Shukrona is the psychotherapy she attends. However, as she emphasized, the psychological help system in Poland is not prepared for working with intercultural clients, which is a major barrier to the effectiveness of the therapy: “I have meetings with a psychologist, but I miss many things. She doesn’t know what culture I was brought up in or what my outlook on life is. It’s a different culture, a different tradition, a different country, and it often [seems] like it’s me who is conducting the therapy, not her. (…) Various NGOs, they say: ‘The psychologist speaks Russian, and that’s it; it’ll be good for you,’ but that’s not enough”.
Shukrona would like to continue her psychology studies in the future—
I” want to finish what I started in Moscow.” Her psychological interests and unsatisfactory personal experiences related to the quality of psychological support offered to migrants have significantly impacted Shukrona’s career plans: “
I want to open a therapy office for women. Sometimes I think I’m a feminist. For example, I was very motivated by the Women’s Strike.6 I like it when women fight for themselves and their rights. Recently, I have seen through the example of my friends—mothers, but also pregnant women—that many of them need it. That’s why I want to open a psychological [help] center and then a foundation where there will be a lot of psychological support and various therapies for women, although men also need them. And I want to make it intercultural”. Shukrona is at a point in her life when she is looking for further professional development after this was interrupted by the need to flee Tajikistan.
Fear of the future casts a shadow over Shukrona’s day-to-day life. However, her story demonstrates that this does not paralyze her in the present nor stifle her ability to make plans that remain open. She displays a “reactive” agency that she can use depending on the decisions she has to make, the context, and the people around her. At the same time, Shukrona’s story shows how mental health difficulties that emerged as a consequence of the need to flee to her home country, the exhausting journey to Poland, the traumatic stay at the reception center, and an abrupt break in her professional career, can significantly limit taking matters into one’s own hands, and how important it is in such situations to receive support. Skukrona found this in her family (a supportive husband and beloved daughter), in the informal women’s groups that have given her faith in a better tomorrow, and, to some extent, in the psychological help offered by one of the NGOs. All these factors have mitigated the harmful effects of traumatic migration memories. They have also supported her with her current difficulties in the labor market, as it turned out to be impossible to continue working as a journalist due to the lack of recognition of her diploma and the language barrier. Shukrona is still experiencing a lot of self-doubt but is constantly working on her self-esteem and has not given up on her dreams. Skukrona’s story demonstrates the crucial role of mental health in implementing one’s life plans and the limits of professional psychological help tailored to the needs of people with a migration or refugee background. What motivates Shukrona in the context of further professional plans is a desire to improve her and her family’s situation and possibly positively impact the lives of other migrant women struggling with similar problems.