Study title

The research collected qualitative interview data from 55 undocumented migrants and 24 ethnic enclave employers from Bangladeshi, Chinese, Turkish (including Kurds from Turkey and Northern Cypriots) communities who were living in London. The three groups were selected for their sizeable presence among London’s minority ethnic communities but also their migration histories, reasons for migration and pathways to the UK have been different, providing the variance of experiences that we were looking for in the study. The fieldwork took place between February 2012 and April 2013. Interviews with undocumented migrants: Of the 55 interviews carried out, 20 interviews were with undocumented migrants from China, 20 with undocumented migrants from Turkey (including Kurds and Northern Cypriots) people and 15 with undocumented migrants from Bangladesh. Trained interviewers, with relevant community language skills, carried out the interviews with undocumented migrants in first languages and translated, transcribed and anonymised the transcripts. The project team carried out detailed training about the project, in-depth interviewing, translations and transcriptions, networking and sampling and research ethics. A number of starting points into networks were used to identify interviewees as a way of ensuring greater diversity than would have been the case if we had drawn from fewer networks, as networks are often quite homogeneous. Indicative quotas to obtain different social and demographic profiles that were relevant for the research questions were used to guide the fieldwork. These included quotas for sex, length of time in the UK and place of employment, either within or outside of the ethnic enclave. In the final sample of undocumented migrants, 40 were men and 15 were women reflecting the greater difficulties we had locating women who were living as undocumented migrants due, in part, to the mores hidden nature of their experiences within domestic settings....