ILPC 2026

International students work experience in irregular works in London

Economic growth in the developing world has created a new middle class (Brooks and Waters, 2013) for whom it is a source of pride to send children overseas to study. However, while new middle class families are able to provide the necessary funds for the successful processing of visa application requests, and while they can often pay for the first term fee and the first few months of expenses to support establishing life in the host country, international students often need to look for work to survive in their new environment (Baas, 2010a). According to UKCISA reports on university and college level international students published in 2004 and 2006, nearly a quarter of the students confirmed that they did not  have enough money because UK living costs were high and exchange rates were unfavorable (Forbes-Mewett et al. 2009).

Many international students have visas that allow part-time work.  However, not all international students hold a work permit in the UK, and sometimes a legal work permit does not provide eligibility to work enough hours to cover the expenses.  As a result, students who cannot find legal work or who wish to work more than what the legal limit allows tend to turn to other forms of work, i.e. irregular work, to deal with the country’s high cost of living. Forbes-Mewett et al. (2009) reported that some students end up working on a full-time basis even when their visa conditions do not allow it. Consequently, international students often get exposed to low-skilled irregular work without any guarantee of representation, are often compelled to perform menial tasks and need to fulfil employer demands for long hours work with no paid holiday entitlement as well as work performed during unsociable hours. In some cases, international students who engage in irregular work may be unfairly dismissed and yet are not able to enjoy any legal redress. The result is that students who operate in irregular work contexts often become vulnerable and at the mercy of employers who utilize their cheaply supplied labour to the maximum extent for saving costs (Forbes-Mewett et al., 2009).

Semi-structured interviews conducted with South Asian and Turkish international students who hold/held jobs in irregular work contexts. Data collected through the use of personal networks and the snowball sampling method. The first few interviews were conducted through a personal network, from which further participants found.