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Abstract As images of international mobility circulate quickly and widely through digital and social media, they form a fundamental part of the discursive formations around border policies and material migration practices. Through a multi-modal visual analysis of the Twitter images accompanying the post of the four major migration institutions in the EU and Canada, this article explores in a comparative perspective how their visual narratives interact with the broader migration narrative across the two contexts. The study findings show that EUAA, FRONTEX, CBSA, and IRCC participate in the border spectacle as leading actors, and their visual communication while allows them to reinforce some of their respective migration governance key messages and display their multiple organizational identities at the same time enables the concealment of some of the critical themes of the EU and Canada migration governance.

Abstract The concept of happiness is becoming an increasingly significant area of focus in the evaluation of overall quality of life. This research examines the impact of migration on the well-being of women who remain in their place of residence following the migration of their family members. The study employs data from the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (2017–2018) in Punjab, Pakistan, and addresses sample selection bias through Propensity Score Matching (PSM). Moreover, as the dependent variable is ordinal, the study employed ordered logistic regression to examine the correlation between migration and happiness, taking into account migration status and other variables. The findings indicate that women from migrant backgrounds tend to benefit from migrating, primarily in terms of enhanced financial resources. In order to gain insight into the varying effects of migration on women’s happiness, the study employed heterogeneity analysis, which revealed that the influence of migration on women’s happiness differs across various areas. In conclusion, the combination of propensity score matching (PSM) with ordered logistic regression and heterogeneity analysis represents a robust methodology for evaluating the impact of migration on women’s perceptions of happiness. The study demonstrates that migration has the potential to improve the quality of life of women who remain in their home countries, particularly those residing in financially disadvantaged households.

Abstract Implementation gaps in the areas of naturalization and immigrant regularization emerge through a mismatch between the documents a residence country requires, and the documents that refugees and migrants can realistically provide. Those caught in this gap may live undocumented or risk statelessness. Residence countries can close such paperwork gaps by adapting legal interpretations and easing administrative requirements. When Colombia faced large-scale international displacement from Venezuela, state actors identified documentation-based implementation gaps in its nationality law and regularization procedures; they then took an innovative – yet not faultless – approach by adapting its citizenship and immigration regimes to accommodate displaced Venezuelans. These changes strengthened access to essential rights and increased the well-being of many. In this article, we develop the concepts of paperwork gaps and paper bridges and discuss the actors, impact, and limitations of Colombia’s policy innovations in the areas of nationality by birth, naturalization, and regularization based on research conducted from 2020 to 2023. The study advances the literature on government learning regarding policies within citizenship and immigration regimes that target internationally displaced populations.

Abstract Migration forecasts are crucial for proactive immigration and integration management. While the demand for accurate migration forecasts continues to grow, the current state of migration forecasting is still unsatisfactory, because they tend to lack precision. We introduce an alternative method to forecast migration movements: prediction markets. While prediction markets are mainly unknown in migration studies, they are established in the political economy of forecasting election outcomes. For its application to a complex phenomenon in a more constrained information environment such as migration movements, we argue that prediction markets allow to balance complementarities of current qualitative and quantitative approaches if they provide solutions to avoid thin trading and integrate expert knowledge into the market. We apply the prediction market to forecast immigration in four West European countries in 2020 and find encouraging results. We discuss the strengths and limitations of prediction markets to migration forecasting, including ethical considerations, and guide its future application.

Abstract Resettlement to a third country offers a durable solution for refugees who cannot integrate into their asylum or transit countries. While most studies focus on the experiences of refugees after their arrival in resettlement countries or on the political aspects of resettlement, fewer studies explore refugees’ perspectives prior to resettlement. This paper examines how Rohingyas in Malaysia view their resettlement opportunities. We collected qualitative micronarratives from 56 adult Rohingyas living in Malaysia between March and September 2019, to explore the complexities of their decision-making processes. The findings indicate that most Rohingyas aspire to resettle in another country to gain legal status or citizenship, providing a better future for their children, including access to education and healthcare. However, preferences among Rohingyas vary: while some are eager to resettle, others express a strong desire to return to their home country in Myanmar. Still, others wish to reunite with family in Myanmar or Bangladesh, and a significant minority are reluctant to resettle in non-Islamic countries, reflecting broader concerns about cultural and religious compatibility. This study highlights the varied resettlement preferences among Rohingyas, underscoring the need for resettlement policies to consider these diverse priorities to enhance the effectiveness of resettlement programs.

Abstract Extant literature shows that well-being is one of the key drivers of attitudes towards migrants as well as preferences for asylum and refugee policies. Less in is known, however, about the relationship between well-being and attitudes towards migrants during sudden micro-level events that may elicit the sense of existential threat. To investigate the underpinnings of these relationships, two studies on samples of 600 Slovaks each were conducted before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and during its initial phase. The results show that well-being had a stable positive relationship with attitudes towards migrants across the studies, albeit not with preferences for asylum and refugee policies. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the negative feelings elicited by the war predicted preferences for asylum and refugee policies beyond well-being. The results indicate that incorporating psychological factors, such as emotional responses to the looming threat of war, may considerably inform the debate surrounding the support for inclusive asylum and refugee policies.

Abstract Engagement with institutions from migrants’ country of origin, both in the destination country and in the country of origin, is distinct transnational behaviour. This study investigates the impact of geographical distance on the institutional engagement of migrants from Czechia in five global regions. We examine how geographic (physical) proximity to Czechia shapes institutional engagement with the country of origin and identify factors beyond distance influencing institutional engagement. We analyzed survey data from Czech emigrants (N = 940) in neighbouring countries, Western and Northern Europe, Southern and Eastern Europe, overseas Anglo-Saxon countries, and other countries. We found that respondents from all more distant regions have higher levels of institutional engagement in the destination country than those from neighbouring countries. Length of stay and education were relevant factors for all selected regions, while place of residence (living in a metropolis) and the level of transnational behavior had varying impacts across regions. Concerning institutional engagement in origin country, the level of transnationalism was consistently the strongest predictor across. Transnational studies should incorporate geographic variables, such as physical distance into their conceptual frameworks. We expect our findings to be generalizable to other countries similar to Czechia, i.e. high-income countries whose citizens benefit from liberal visa regimes.

Abstract This article recounts the stories of Afghan migrants who have returned from Iran to Afghanistan. I frame these accounts of ordinary Afghans’ life experiences as “narratives of pride,” juxtaposing these stories with narratives of victimhood that dominate the immigration discourse on Afghanistan and more generally. In these narratives, migrants are predominantly characterized as victims in need of being saved. This article instead asks: why do returnees from Iran focus mostly on the positive parts of their mobility while downplaying the difficulties of dealing with the Iranian state, which does not have a good track record of dealing with migrants? In telling stories of years of living and working in Iran or other countries, I find that my interlocutors characterize themselves as sophisticated men of the world with a deep understanding of social and political phenomena that give them the ability to navigate life in foreign lands—an image far from victimhood as it is commonly portrayed in the literature and media. The article argues that in order to better understand the agency of migrants, it is crucial to form long-term connections with them to gain a more nuanced understanding of their experiences, rather than simply reproducing stories of victimhood.

Abstract Recognizing the importance of evidence-based research in informing migration policies and empowering migrant domestic workers (MDWs), this study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of MDW research patterns and trends. Using a descriptive cross-sectional study design, research articles on MDWs were retrieved from the Scopus database. The findings reveal a substantial increase in research output in recent years, with notable contributions from journals in the fields of social sciences and humanities. Key contributors include scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, and institutions such as the National University of Singapore and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Journals in the field of migration have prominent role in publishing research on MDWs. At the author level, Yeoh, B.S.A, at the National University of Singapore was the most prolific author. Academic activities were the main driver of research and that funding was suboptimal in this field. Highly cited articles focused on topics such as transnational motherhood, the international division of reproductive labor, and the negotiation of citizenship rights. Major research hotspots in the retrieved articles included mental health aspects, caregiving especially of the elderly, and struggles for legal rights. Specific nationalities, such as Filipina/o and Indonesian MDWs, have been the focus of numerous studies, shedding light on their narratives, challenges, and agency within transnational contexts. Overall, this study underscores the urgency of addressing the needs and rights of MDWs, advocate for human rights, and enhance understanding of occupational health and safety in the unique context of domestic work.

Abstract This paper examines how forced migrants integrate individual perception, interpersonal exchange, and extended networks to navigate the naturalization process. By bringing together these three methods of knowledge creation and exchange, we aim to clarify how these strategies interact and overlap to manage uncertainties stemming from naturalization bureaucracy, a complex and often opaque process. Drawing on personal accounts of 30 Syrians in Berlin and analysis of approximately 100 social media posts, our findings illustrate that these methods could be employed concurrently or interchangeably and on the whole in a symbiotic manner, offering migrants multiple pathways to acquire and (in)validate crucial information. Although this synthesis of knowledge production methods is not necessarily conducive to accessing the right in question, in our case naturalization, it becomes necessary to arrive at “informed” decision-making in uncertain environments characterized by low level of trust and asymmetrical power relations. The paper therefore contributes to broader discussions on migrants’ navigation of legal systems and coping mechanisms in the face of bureaucratic hurdles.

Abstract Studies on migration aspirations have provided fresh perspectives for two decades by focusing on the changing nature of aspirations, the aspirations-cap/abilities nexus, and by offering a counterpoint through the ‘aspirations to stay’. Building from these, this article proposes a model to explain the intensity and strength of (im)mobility aspirations, given that these can be strong and specific but also weak, mild, conditional, and even conflicting. To do so, I focus on the preferences to migrate or to stay by examining how the two dimensions of (im)mobility – the intrinsic and the instrumental – interact. I study the different emotions and thoughts attached to (im)mobility, how life and migration aspirations are intertwined, and the ways in which migration and stay aspirations can co-exist. In doing so, I differentiate between three ideal-type strengths of aspirations: harmonious, conflicting, and indeterminate aspirations. Harmonious aspirations capture strong convictions about what is more convenient: staying or migrating. Conflicting aspirations stress that both migration and stay aspirations can be concurrently present and equally strong. Indeterminate aspirations represent uncertainty or indifference about where to be. With this focus, the paper provides a simple approach to orient research beyond ideal-type categories by incorporating complex, often contradictory emotions. The paper draws on 37 qualitative interviews in two former mining regions in North-West Spain to advance theorization on migration aspirations and decision-making and to question if the division between migration and stay aspirations is clear-cut.

Abstract The relationship between feminist movements and racialised migrant women in Europe remains marred by the continued marginalisation of migrant women’s political claims in feminist struggles, despite the circulation of intersectional discourses within academic and activist circles. This article documents important spaces of experimentation which Black activists are creating within the Italian feminist movement to give voice to racialised migrant women without the mediating intervention of white feminists. Rooted in an understanding of the margins as a site of resistance, such efforts engage in practices of refusal and talking back to reclaim a Black epistemic identity which powerfully interpellates Italian institutions and feminist activists. Black migrant women demand the recognition not only of their inherent capacity to speak, act, decide, but also of their ability to articulate a political analysis and a political project to challenge the intersectional discrimination and violence they face. Their struggle centres work as a site of compounding gendered and racialised exploitation, thus carrying the potential to expand feminist thinking and action on reproductive labour, labour participation and equal pay.

Abstract Migration often impacts the mental and emotional health of those needing to move from their home countries. Studies have focused on migrants’ levels of distress or well-being, and recent research looks at older migrants’ experience with loneliness. What has yet to be researched is how different migrant groups experience loneliness, and how these feelings are affected by the contexts of leaving one country and reception in another. Drawing on the theoretical framework of integration, this article asks whether newly arrived refugees in Germany differ in their perception of loneliness from other newly arrived migrants. It examines these perceptions as related to social contacts and the context—and interplay—of exit and reception. Using OLS regressions with data from the Recent Immigration Processes and Early Integration Trajectories in Germany (ENTRA) project, we find that Syrian refugees have higher levels of loneliness than migrant groups from Poland, Italy, and Turkey. The difference is largely attributable to Syrians not having local German contacts, surviving traumatic experiences at home, and migrating specifically for physical safety. We also find that discrimination and not being in the labor force are determinants of loneliness across all four groups, and that even when considering migrant origins and other effects, having local social contacts lowers levels of loneliness. Our results point to migration policies, such as those related to family reunification and labor market access, for producing inequalities in loneliness between Syrian refugees and other migrants in Germany.

Abstract Applying nation branding literature and the work of Erving Goffman on dramaturgy to the situation of asylum-seeking children in Norway and in the UK, this paper develops a comparative framework for understanding why child rights appear to be de-prioritised in the current climate of ‘migration control’. The paper identifies historically grounded differential approaches towards child rights and children in the two countries, which currently appear to merge into a common trajectory of migration control, framed in terms of national security and economic productivity. It explores similar tensions in both countries between the discourses of national migration management on the one hand and children's welfare and rights on the other. It finds that universal rights which should protect the welfare of all children are limited and fragmented by ideas of nationalism and foreignness. Despite a more robust legal framework for child rights, Norway is on a similar pathway as the UK; a worrying indictment of how nations fulfil their obligations towards children.

Abstract The creation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is indicative of the sharpening tensions surrounding citizenship, belonging and integration in India. Officially aimed at demarcating the “legitimate citizens”, its implementation is believed to have resulted in the partial exclusion of the so-called “Doubtful Voters” and denationalisation of the “illegitimate residents”. These frictions associated with citizenship identity and rights are nowhere as acute as in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, where measures of retroactive revocation, administrative erasure and withdrawal of citizenship rights have been systematically deployed against religious and linguistic minorities. Using new research with some NRC rejected applicants in western Assam and other materials, this article identifies the central aspects of the implementation gap in the crucial, albeit problematic task of locating the rightful “Assamese-Indian” citizens. Linking our work to the idea of the ‘process is the punishment’, we conceptualise these conspicuous inconsistencies in the NRC citizenship determination processes and their results as the “punitive gap”. We have identified the distinctive contours of this gap in terms of the massive economic costs, intensification of social (including gender and religion-based) inequalities, increased control through social suspicion and unpredictable outcomes for the marginal Miya Muslim community. The article highlights how this punitive gap has constantly eroded key components of due process, of procedural and substantive protections of the rights of individuals, during the NRC determination exercise and after the release of the final draft list.

Abstract Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, in what can be called an ‘integrationist wave’, standardised integration requirements for naturalisation have become increasingly common in Europe. To examine the impact of such measures, I combine original ethnographic data on institutions involved in the implementation of citizenship policies in Belgium and the UK with a qualitative meta-analysis of existing ethnographic studies of the implementation of citizenship policies. I show how, in addition to introducing new obstacles to naturalisation, standardised requirements have also reduced the discretion inscribed in earlier procedures, albeit not uniformly across different cases. The integrationist wave could thus be understood not simply as the introduction of restrictive notions of integration, but also as the systemisation of earlier evaluation practices. I further show signs of a more recent tendency for states to retreat from examining the integration of candidates to citizenship, outsourcing the evaluation directly or indirectly to private actors.

Abstract This study focuses on the impact of three attributes of migrants – their reasons for migration, religion, and level of religiosity – on public support for allowing migrants to come and live in Israel. We rely on a factorial survey that was conducted in a representative sample of the Israeli Jewish population analyzing the assessments of 600 respondents of various vignettes (N = 3,595) of hypothetical migrants about admitting them to the country. The findings reveal that Israeli Jews do not evaluate all immigrant groups equally. Preferences for specific groups of migrants are primarily structured along two main attributes: religion and reasons for migration. The result is a hierarchical distinction between immigrants of Jewish ancestry and those who are non-Jewish. Jewish repatriates are perceived as “deserving migrants” who can make legitimate claims about belonging to the host society. As such, they enjoy an ethno-religious premium based on ancestral rights. By contrast, there is less support for the entry of non-Jewish migrants, whether asylum seekers or labor migrants, as their presence is viewed as a threat to the Jewish character of the state and the hegemony of the Jewish majority. The impact of the immigrants’ attributes on attitudes varies based on the level of religiosity of the Jewish population, especially in the case of non-Jewish migrants. Support is stronger in the case of secular respondents and much weaker among their more religious counterparts. The findings are discussed in light of existing theories.

Abstract This study investigates the role of migration background in the saving behavior of youth, with a focus on immigrant generation, national origin, and the influence of cultural and socioeconomic factors. Drawing on a nationally representative dataset of over 28,000 secondary school students in the Netherlands, we employ binary logit models to analyze two dimensions of saving behavior: the likelihood of saving money and the propensity to use bank accounts for savings. Our findings reveal significant disparities in saving behavior among immigrant and non-immigrant youth. Migrant youth are less likely to save overall, and when they do, they exhibit a reduced inclination to use bank accounts for their savings. Furthermore, the study uncovers nuanced patterns within the immigrant youth population. First-generation immigrant youth display lower levels of saving and bank account usage compared to their second-generation counterparts, particularly to those with one foreign-born parent. Distinct national origin effects are observed, as Turkish and Moroccan youth exhibit reduced likelihoods of saving, particularly through bank accounts, compared to Surinamese and Dutch Antillean youth. The results also indicate that the disparities in saving behavior across migration background, immigrant generation, and national origin are partly explained by socioeconomic and cultural forces. Socio-economic status and parental education emerge as key determinants, with higher parental socio-economic resources and education levels positively associated with youth saving behavior and bank account usage. Additionally, religious affiliation, particularly among Muslim youth, contributes to variations in saving behavior due to the prohibition of interest-bearing transactions.

This article examines the role of ethnic networks in the development of migrant communities by focusing on modern-day Armenian migration to Russia. While much existing research on migrant networks tends to focus on newly arrived migrants’ experiences of gaining support in the destination countries through ethnic networks, little has been said about the impact of ethnic networks on migrant community development. Additionally, studies on the Armenian communities’ development are mainly focused on the historical context and scholars see little interest in studying modern-day Armenian migration and migrant community development. Drawing on empirical data from Armenia, this study explores how post-Soviet migration to Russia shapes contemporary Armenian communities there. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research conducted in 2020−2021, the article studies the significance of ethnic networks at both individual and collective levels. The quantitative research results offer insights into the role of ethnic networks in shaping migratory routes, while qualitative research highlights how these networks contribute to community construction, driven by regional affiliations that differ from traditional Armenian diaspora institutions. The study reveals the multiple roles of ethnic networks, including their influence on migratory behaviour, their persistence and importance across generations and their impact on community organisations’ development and leadership. It also highlights migrants’ preferences for engaging with their regions or villages of origin.

This article investigates the subjective life satisfaction of Russian immigrant physicians in Finland. It focuses on how life satisfaction is subjectively experienced and interpreted post migration in a bid to identify the resources which influence it in both work and family domains. The advantage of life satisfaction is taking it as a unifying cross-disciplinary conceptual framework and as a multidimensional analytical approach, including macro-societal, meso-relational, and micro-personal levels. We use the concept of the migratory career to analyse work and family life on migration journeys. These life evaluations are analysed using a sociological conception of subjective life satisfaction and a psychological conception of wellbeing as guiding principles in theory and analysis. Based on 26 semi-structured qualitative interviews, the study finds that an interplay between societal-structural and personal-relational resources makes the interviewees satisfied with their work and family lives. Societal-structural resources included the work environment, income, life security and stability, while personal-relational resources included social support, social trust, and family relationships. Beyond the classical income and job security, we find our participants’ experienced and interpreted life satisfaction is essentially associated with outcomes of family-friendly and supportive work conditions. Moreover, social and personal security and family stability are important for their quality of life in a characteristic Nordic social environment.

This critical ethnographic study was conducted among 15 immigrants originally from Caucasian and Central Asian countries, each with more than 10 years of undocumented residence in Moscow. It focuses on the everyday experiences of undocumented immigrants in a non-Western context, illustrating how informal networks, alongside official migration policies, contribute to and exploit unequal capabilities. The study emphasises the thresholds of emotions, affiliation and control over a person’s environment, demonstrating power asymmetries between individuals. Given the participants’ prolonged undocumented stay in Moscow, the findings demonstrate how the socio-legal context of an undocumented status facilitates informal exploitation alongside institutional operating models, aligning with migration policies in practice.

In 2015, the inflow of immigrants to Europe increased dramatically. More than 1 million people fled from wars and conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly affecting transit countries along the Western Balkan route. Of all the transit countries, the Hungarian government was particularly vocal in its negative attitude towards immigrants, launching several anti-immigration campaigns which had a detrimental effect on residents’ hostility towards these immigrants. In this study, we focus on the mechanisms behind this increased hostility in a transit-country context by combining insights from integrated-threat theory and contact theory. We find that perceptions of realistic and symbolic threat increased negative attitudes towards immigrants. Importantly, these threat perceptions were shaped by people’s positions in society and personal circumstances, in combination with their contact with immigrants. Specifically, in the harsh and negative Hungarian context, contact negatively influenced threat perceptions, especially amongst people who were at risk of experiencing negative consequences supposedly caused by the influx of immigrants. This in-depth country case study emphasises the importance of contextualising research findings on attitudes towards immigration in a broader social and political context.

This paper presents the concept of the emigration region that emerged as a result of wide research identifying the causes of emigration and migration networks, as well as the demographic and socio-economic consequences of significant emigration for particular regions. It is an overview based on long-standing research by the authors and draws heavily on numerous contributions that address the links between regional development and long-term migration outflow. The hypothesis is that an emigration region is formed under the influence of long-term and mass emigration resulting in progressive depopulation and characterised by a set of economic, social and cultural features clearly distinguishing it from regions where such a pattern of relationships is either missing or incidental. Identified features of emigration regions include a well-established tradition of emigration, the long-term nature of emigration, a significant quantitative dimension of emigration, well-developed networks of social relationships between the countries of outflow and inflow, the complex socio-political and economic reasons for emigration and the specific consequences of it, observed both at the individual (micro) level and at the level of local and regional communities (the meso level). The concept of an emigration region is illustrated by the example of the Opolskie Voivodeship (Poland, a NUTS-2 region). The concept of an emigration region emerged as a result of many years of research by the authors, implemented mainly in the Opolskie Voivodeship. The research methods were diverse (including quantitative and qualitative social research) and the research was conducted among the entities involved to varying degrees in broadly understood migration processes (emigrants, re-emigrants, regional and local governments, entrepreneurs).

Historically, approaches within the field of migrant entrepreneurship have almost exclusively focused on migration to nation-states in the Global North. Despite more-recent studies extending the scope to migrants’ home countries – and even third-country locations – they have nonetheless remained rooted in South–North migratory contexts and, subsequently, have been mainly theorised based on the concept of persistent power imbalances internationally. Indeed, studies of migrant entrepreneurship in reverse (North–South) migratory contexts have exposed a number of assumptions implicit within these approaches. What is needed, therefore, is a theoretical approach which can account for the global asymmetry hitherto overlooked in the field of migrant entrepreneurship. This paper aims to do exactly that, offering the concept of ‘global embeddedness’, which situates the phenomenon of migrant entrepreneurship within a wider, asymmetrical global environment and, in so doing, provides a way of accounting for variations in migrant entrepreneurship found outside of the Global North.

Hosting large numbers of refugees in private homes rather than in refugee camps is a fairly unusual phenomenon in the broadly understood Western context, including the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, explorative research is much needed to determine the fundamental problems triggered by this novel situation. Based on a series of individual in-depth interviews with Polish hosts who invited Ukrainian refugees to live in their homes, this paper puts under scrutiny the micro-relations between the hosts and the guests. The study identified 6 kinds of ‘difficulty’, including (1) negotiating everyday routines, (2) dealing with difficult life situations and stress, (3) quarrels and divisions among migrants, (4) neglecting one’s own family, (5) a too strong emotional attachment to the guests and (6) irreconcilable sets of expectations.

This paper analyses the changes in the involvement of Polish local governments in the system of public policies addressing the needs of forced migrants in Poland. The driver of such changes was the humanitarian emergency connected to the influx of Ukrainian forced migrants in 2022, which followed the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In a multi-level governance context, the article unpacks the policy-change process, discussing the interplay between the Polish public-policy system, the political context, the state polity, and local governments’ activity. During the humanitarian emergency, the external circumstances for local governments’ operations altered. Many local authorities attempted to expand their involvement, while sometimes questioning the inter-institutional power balance. The functional role – the scope of their responsibility and the activities that they undertake – of local governments in the discussed policy system was temporarily extended. Moreover, in the context of power relations between the actors of the policy system, their structural position vis-à-vis other stakeholders was redefined, as their agency and political impact increased. This article concludes that the above, mostly temporary, changes will have implications for the broader development of the Polish migration-policy system, resulting in Polish local governments inflicting greater political impact on such a system in the future, while also maintaining increased activity around policies addressing forced migrants.

Poland has faced several crisis situations related to migration in the past decade. With differences in the scale and origins of incoming people, these crises have triggered various reactions from Polish policy-makers, from the welcoming of non-EU migrants to the implementation of restrictive measures at the Polish border. The present research uses a discursive approach to study the ways in which non-EU migrants are presented and discussed in Poland. By comparing official discourses from Polish authorities during the 2015–2016 migration crisis, the 2021 border crisis with Belarus and following the Russian war on Ukraine in 2022, we analyse how different groups of non-EU migrants are discursively described and considered by political figures. Furthermore, as these crises have important links with the European Union (EU), we also investigate how Poland’s relationship with the EU is envisioned by Polish authorities. Through the discourse analysis carried out, we argue that ‘migrants’ and ‘refugees’ are discursively constructed as opposing groups in a manner that is highly visible. This discursive strategy is instrumentally used to reflect on the perceived deservingness, alterity or proximity of incoming people. We identify one unifying perspective of Poland’s relationship with the EU throughout these crises: Polish authorities are keen to stress the importance of its membership of the EU when benefiting from the latter’s restriction of migration to Europe.

How is the well-being of returnees when considered from the point of view of the migration experience abroad? To answer this question, the first hypothesis considers that returnees differ in the function of the key activity they had abroad – working, studying or living there without working or studying. Secondly, even if one maintains constant socio-demographic profiles, the country of return counts. Thirdly, it depends also on the facet of subjective well-being (SWB) that is considered – the happiness of living in a certain country of the European Union or a person’s satisfaction with life, country, public services or income. The results of the multivariate analysis indicate that experience of migration, country of current residence and facets of SWB all count. Returnees – through their experience of migration abroad – are compared to non-migrants. The answers come from analysing data from a large Eurobarometer survey in the European Union. Multivariate regression and cluster analysis are the main data-processing procedures. The stability of the results is tested by sensitivity analysis.

Abstract The massive increase in labor migration to the Middle East during the past three decades has rivaled its historical trends bound to the West. This paper assesses how this growing trend of migration may have helped shape the economic structure and performance across the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Findings from a descriptive and time series regression analysis of the limited cross-country data show that the experience with labor migration and its linkage with other aspects of the economy are varied. The migration trend coinciding with increasing personal remittances attests to the competitive demand for foreign labor. While labor migration shows mixed association with the key aspects of the economy, the stock of migrant population is negatively associated with economic growth. Albeit seemingly contradictory, the insights from this six-country analysis covering the periods since 1990 are useful to understand the complex nature of relationship between labor migration and economic structure and performance in the region.

Abstract The existing literature points to securitisation as a dominant form of emergency governance emerging in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, also in relation to migration. However, another important way of framing migration during the pandemic is in terms of economisation. This article aims to analyse the rationale underpinning Polish immigration policy during COVID-19 with a focus on different forms of economisation: macro-economisation, which prioritises economic growth over other socially important issues; and substantive economisation, which centres the needs of a population during a given historical moment. Based on desk and qualitative research, including analysis of official documents and media coverage as well as in-depth expert interviews, we argue that the logics of both kinds of economisation can be discerned in Poland’s immigration policy. Our overall conclusion is that during the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite strong anti-immigrant rhetoric in official political discourse, Poland’s immigration policy prioritised the interests of the national economy and labour market over strategies of security and social control.

Abstract Child labor migration is a critical issue that has received limited attention from academic and policy domains in many developing countries. This article analysis the causes of child labor migration and working conditions at the destination of temporary inter-rural child labor migration from Sekela district, Northwest Ethiopia. Mixed research methods is employed. Quantitative data is collected from randomly selected 204 respondents engaged in child labor migration. Focus group discussion, informal conversational interviews, and observation are also undertaken to gather qualitative data. Most child labor migrants participate in child labor migration due to localized economic constraints, which are reflected through a desire to have modern goods and cloth, food scarcity, and resource degradation. Also, the expansion of commercial farms at destination areas directly or indirectly due to the globalized market indicates that migrant children’s local labor cannot be delinked from material realities created by both national and international economic policy. The income from child labor migration supports children and their households’ livelihood, though it is at the expense of children’s education as well as exposure to worse working conditions at their destination in terms of exploitation, underpayment, malnutrition, breaching of an agreement by employers, and harassment. Hence, to exploit the benefits and minimize the risks, balanced measures should be taken at the origin and destination. Education programs should be supportive in increasing food productivity and assisting households to diversify their means of income by allowing them to participate in non-farm activities. It is also essential to the establishment of support groups in migrant destination places and the expansion of labor inspectorates who continuously supervise the safety of child labor migrants.

This editorial introduction sets the scene for the second part of the Special Section devoted to studying the multi-faceted migration-related consequences of the Russian full-scale invasion against Ukraine of 24 February 2022. Different kinds of migration, migration policies, practices of assistance and solidarity and also experiences of discrimination and exclusion happening in the aftermath or in the context of the Russian aggression against Ukraine after 24 February 2022 – whether inside Ukraine, in neighbouring states or globally – remain within the scope of both parts of this Special Section, with the first part having been published in June 2023.

In this study, we explore how educational differences in demographic behavior – in particular, mating patterns and fertility – mediate the intergenerational reproduction of educational inequality in twelve European countries. Although this research interest itself is not new, we contribute to this debate by adopting a prospective approach and scaling it to include multiple countries and cohorts. To this end, we leverage a series of complementary datasets and the inferential method developed by Song and Mare (2015) and advanced by Skopek and Leopold (2020) to estimate the components of a stylized educational reproduction model. We then employ a simple decomposition analysis to quantify the contributions of different pathways to prospective educational reproduction rates across educational backgrounds and explore the differences across cohorts and countries. We report several findings. Most notably, (1) the intergenerational reproduction of educational inequality persists in all twelve countries and is barely offset by small (and declining) negative educational gradients in fertility, (2) educational differences in selection into partnership are small and do not account for much inequality, and (3) the role of assortative mating, where present, is ambiguous because it both reinforces inequality via its effects on resources within the family and offsets it via its effects on fertility. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Changes in Educational Homogamy and Its Consequences”.

Among the factors related to marital disruption, age assortative mating (who marries whom in terms of age) has received less attention than others. In this study, we study the association between partners’ age difference and marital disruption in Italy, a late-comer country in divorce legislation and highly conservative in its culture and institutions. We also show how this association varies across marriage cohorts. We employ data from “Families, social subjects and life cycle” (FSS), collected in 2016 by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat). We analyse micro-level retrospective information on first-marriage histories between the 1970s and the 1990s through an event-history approach. Results show that age hypogamous couples (where the woman is older than the man) have a higher likelihood of marital disruption compared to couples where the wife is the same age or younger than her husband. However, this higher risk reduces among the youngest cohorts. We discuss the possible drivers of this change in light of cultural changes that occurred in recent decades. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Changes in Educational Homogamy and Its Consequences”.

Couples in which wives have more education than their husbands have been found to be more likely than other couples to divorce. But this relationship varies across time and place. We compare the relationship between spouses’ relative education and marital dissolution across four birth cohorts born between 1951 and 1990 in East and West Germany using 37 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2021) and Cox proportional hazard models. The comparison between East and West Germany provides contrasting levels and trends in women’s education, employment, and gender cultures, with East Germany persistently being a more gender egalitarian context compared to West Germany. Our results show that marriages in which wives have more education than their husbands are less stable in West Germany, but not in East Germany, where the point estimates indicate that these couples are more stable than other couples, but this association is not statistically significant. We do not find evidence of cohort change in these associations in either East or West Germany. These findings are consistent with the idea that the consequences of non-traditional gender arrangements are weaker in more egalitarian contexts and confirm that notable differences between East and West Germany persist after reunification. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Changes in Educational Homogamy and Its Consequences”.

Trust has recently received some attention in demographic literature as one potential factor for fertility considerations in post-industrial societies. It has been argued that trust is relevant in a number of different ways, including as a resilience mechanism against different perceived uncertainties that may affect childrearing decisions. Trust is also related to a host of positive political and economic outcomes, all of which enable childbearing. To date, studies have used macro-level or multilevel frameworks and a measure of social trust that focuses on confidence in fellow members of society. In our study, we use two novel modules of the Swedish Generations and Gender Survey 2021 (GGS2021) to study this relationship further. First, we analyse the associations between different measures of interpersonal and institutional trust on the one hand and individuals’ fertility intentions on the other. Second, we examine whether either interpersonal or institutional trust acts as a resilience mechanism against various individual and global uncertainties. The results do not show trust to be a decisive factor behind fertility intentions in Sweden. The absence of strong associations may be attributable to Sweden’s position as a notably high-trust society, with its inclusive labour markets and welfare services.

The recently presented CroHaM hypothesis says (1) that longitudinal health domain-specific expansion and compression effects depend primarily on the health domains’ mortality risk and (2) that these effects exist equivalently in the cross-sectional context, affecting differences in healthy life years (HLY) between populations and subpopulations with different levels of life expectancy (LE). We test this hypothesis by analysing the association between LE and unhealthy life years (ULY) at age 50 for a large number of subpopulations. The analyses are carried out for three health domains which are differently related to mortality: poor self-perceived health and strong activity limitation with comparatively high mortality, and chronic morbidity with comparatively low risk of dying. Data on gender- and subpopulation-specific prevalence of these health conditions are taken from the Actual German Health Study 2012 (GEDA). LEs are estimated with the “Longitudinal Survival Method”, using data of the German Life Expectancy Survey. ULY are estimated with the “Sullivan Method”. Differences in ULY between each subpopulation and the total population and between women and men for each subpopulation are decomposed into the effects caused by differences in health (“health effect”) and mortality (“mortality effect”) with the “Nusselder/Looman Method”. The results confirm the CroHaM hypothesis: we find a positive relationship between LE and ULY only for chronic morbidity, whereas this relationship is negative for poor self-perceived health and strong activity limitation. However, when the mortality effect is controlled for, we find a negative relationship between LE and ULY for all three health domains. The practical relevance of these findings is discussed using the example of the so-called “gender paradox” in health and mortality. We conclude that the CroHaM hypothesis may describe an important determinant of life years spent with and without health impairment, and it may help to better understand and interpret trends and differentials in HLY or ULY based on cross-sectional data. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Levels and Trends of Health Expectancy: Understanding its Measurement and Estimation Sensitivity”.

Abstract This article develops mobility-based categories for studying young people with and without a migration background. Most research on migrant youth uses the category of ethnicity, defined by a young person’s country of origin or that of their parents, or the category of generation, with migrants defined as first, second or 1.5 generation. But these categories hide the mobility that young people engage in, both for those youth who have migration in their biographies and those who do not. Mobility can entail migration, but also other kinds of trips such as study abroad, vacations, gap years, and family visits. In a globalising world the ability of young people to move is increasingly a marker of difference and therefore needs to be considered when studying young people’s lives. Using insights from the transnational and mobilities turns in the social sciences, this article argues that we need to develop new analytical categories that capture the various ways in which young people are mobile. Such mobility-based categories promise to shed light on young people’s lives in three ways. First such categories allow investigation of various elements of commonality and difference between youth, irrespective of where they or their parents come from. They allow us to go beyond the nation-state lens that still guides most large-scale migration research and to explore within-group differences. Second, mobility-based categories take young people’s past and present mobilities into account, allowing a temporal understanding of how mobility affects their lives. Finally, mobility-based categories are a way to operationalize the notion that mobility entails a process rather than a one-time move. The article explores what mobility-based categories could look like, based on a recent, large-N, primary data collection project on secondary-school student’s mobility in three European countries and one African one.

Abstract The provision of refuge to those fleeing persecution and danger is a complex matter that cannot be reduced to simply meeting admission quotas. While numerical targets for refugee admissions may seem like a straightforward way to ensure states are doing their fair share, an overemphasis on numbers risks obscuring the deeper moral issues at play. A truly robust approach to refugee protection requires that states act from the right kinds of reasons - a genuine commitment to the duty to provide safe haven to all refugees, regardless of their country of origin or the political expediency of admitting them. The worry is that if a state’s willingness to accept refugees fluctuates based on domestic political preferences and perceptions of national interest, rather than an unwavering recognition of the moral claims of the forcibly displaced, then the protection provided to refugees becomes contingent and precarious. A disposition to selectively protect only certain refugees undermines the very concept of refuge. However, in our non-ideal world, a commitment to the principle of robust refugee protection can run up against the hard reality of state non-compliance. If the only way to get some states to fulfil their duties is to allow them leeway in choosing which refugees to admit, we face a serious moral dilemma. Relaxing the demands of robustness may enable larger raw numbers of people to access refuge in the near term. However, it also risks eroding the norm of impartial consideration and creating a two-tier system of refugee protection. Ultimately, I argue, the dilemma between refugee numbers and robustness has no fully satisfying solution - it is an unavoidable product of our current circumstances of injustice and non-compliance. The best we can do is seek arrangements that ease this tension over time. This requires taking a nuanced, context-sensitive approach attuned to real-world constraints and trade-offs while still keeping sight of the moral lodestar of genuinely unconditional refuge for all who need it.

Abstract Scholarship on immigrant stereotypes suggest that individuals’ viewpoints toward immigration may be differentiated across the dimensions of culture and economics. In this study, we use latent class analysis, which avoids the assumption that attitudes are unidimensional, scalar, and polarized, to examine configurations of immigration attitudes in Europe from 2002 through 2010, a period of time leading up to and within the Great Recession. Analyzing a set of items capturing different aspects of immigration attitudes, we discover that although there are substantial segments of the European population who hold polarized anti- or pro-immigration attitudes, the most common viewpoint is ambivalence. Specifically, those with ambivalent attitudes feel that immigration enriches national culture but also believe that immigration has less benefits for the economy. Using an interrupted time series design, we explore how attitudinal configurations shifted with the onset of the Great Recession. The crisis coincided with a rise in ambivalent attitudes as economic threat grew more than concerns about culture.

Abstract De-migranticization is becoming a core strategy for overcoming the fetishization of migrants in migration studies. However, this shift in perspectives raises questions about what categories to use instead. This paper contributes to these debates by considering the potential of studying immobility as a tool for de-migranticization. It looks at immobility through the lens of liminality: as a transitory phase, as a transformative stage and as one which enables epistemological subversion. In doing so, it goes beyond other border spanning terms to offer methodological insights into using immobility and liminality to de-migranticize. The paper suggests that these qualities of reading immobility through theories of liminality has implications for when, where and how to study migration. The empirical case draws on 165 semi-structured interviews with distance education students from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Nigeria studying at the University of South Africa (UNISA).

Abstract Despite the prevalence of ambiguous citizenship policies that say one thing in law and another in implementing regulations, few studies have focused on systematically studying this type of implementation gap, particularly in contexts beyond North America and Europe. This largely has remained the case despite research on discursive policy gaps, which occur between a policy’s stated objectives and its laws, efficacy gaps, which describe when a policy’s outcomes fail to meet its goals, and compliance gaps, which reflect disparities between a state’s commitments to international law and its corresponding domestic policies. How can we advance conceptualizations of law-regulation implementation gaps? This paper proposes one approach by focusing on the content of domestic laws, on the one hand, and the content of related implementing regulations, on the other. When law-regulation discrepancies occur, they illustrate the agency of senior officials in writing this intentional ambiguity into different levels of legislation, challenging assumptions about institutional weakness and lower-level bureaucratic discretion as chief drivers of implementation gaps. The paper illustrates this concept by analyzing discrepancies between Jordan’s nationality and passports laws and their related implementing regulations, particularly regarding Gaza refugees’ access to passports, investors’ access to nationality, and Palestinian-Jordanians’ subjection to nationality withdrawals. These diverse cases of intentional ambiguity demonstrate that such gaps can serve to partially exclude or include a group and can occur with noncitizen and citizen as well as more or less vulnerable groups.

Abstract This article investigates the interplay between knowledge acquisition and the stepwise migration trajectories of low-skilled Vietnamese workers in China. Utilizing a rich array of data garnered from face-to-face interviews, customized surveys, on-site observations, media narratives, and an archival review of government regulations in Guangxi—a province bordering Vietnam—and in Guangdong, a non-adjacent province, this study proposes an analytical framework, skill-driven migration, to highlight the synergy between the pre-migratory socio-demographic attributes of migrants and the circumstances prevailing in both the places of origin and destination which orchestrates distinct job allocations and skill augmentation avenues. Notably, our study underscores that the competencies acquired in manufacturing employments potentially broaden the horizon of destinations for migrants in their subsequent stepwise migration endeavors. This phenomenon, in turn, poses intricate immigration management quandaries for newly emerged destination nations like China, spotlighting a nuanced dimension of labor mobility and policy frameworks in the evolving regional economic integration. Last, our findings challenge the conventional dichotomy of high-skilled and low-skilled categories of labor migration, as well as the dichotomy of explicit-tacit knowledge.

Abstract Individuals who reside in a country without regular authorisation generally find it difficult to access public medical services beyond emergency treatment. Even in countries with universal healthcare, there is often a gap between rights on paper and their implementation. Civil society organisations (CSOs) fill this gap by providing medical services to vulnerable populations, including irregular migrants. What, if any, are the ethical dilemmas that arise for CSO staff when delivering such services in countries with universal healthcare? Under what conditions do these dilemmas arise? And what strategies do CSO staff use to mitigate them? We answer these questions using 40 semi-structured interviews with CSO staff working in two European countries with high levels of irregularity, universal healthcare provisions on paper, and significant differences in approaches and availability of public services for irregular migrants: Italy and Spain. We show that CSO staff providing medical services to irregular migrants in places with universal healthcare coverage face a fundamental dilemma between humanitarianism and equity. CSO staff respond to the humanitarian belief in the value of taking all possible steps to prevent or alleviate human suffering, thus promoting a decent quality of life that includes access to both emergency and non-emergency care. In doing so, however, they run the risk of substituting rather than complementing public provisions, thereby preventing governments from assuming responsibility for these services in the long term. Individuals who acknowledge the existence of this dilemma generally oppose the creation of parallel structures; that is, services specifically developed for irregular migrants outside the public system; while those who ignore it essentially subscribe to a tiered system, giving up on considerations of equity. We argue that CSOs involved in the provision of healthcare to irregular migrants do not simply provide services; they also play an inherently political role.

Abstract Residence of unauthorized immigrants is a stable feature of the Global North’s liberal democracies. This article asks how liberal-democratic policymakers should respond to this phenomenon, assuming both that states have incontrovertible rights and interests to assert control over immigration and that unauthorized residence is nevertheless an entrenched fact. It argues that a set of liberal-democratic commitments gives policymakers strong reason to implement both so-called ‘firewall’ and ‘regularization’ policies, thereby protecting unauthorized immigrants’ basic needs and interests and officially incorporating many of them in society. It then explains that the background imperative of immigration control creates a dilemmatic tension between these policies, as regularization is envisaged alongside the removal of the ineligible, which is in turn hindered by the implementation of firewalls. This creates a dilemma between the pursuit of two policy goals that are both underwritten by the same value commitments. Though it cannot be entirely dissolved, I argue that the best way to mitigate this dilemma is to design regularization policy in a way that leaves only a small number of unauthorized immigrants subject to removal.

Abstract Despite their strong humanitarian reputations abroad, Norway and Canada have adopted domestic immigration policies that produce permanently precarious residents. These policies affect individuals—including refugees, permanent residents, and naturalized citizens—who have traditionally enjoyed secure legal statuses. Adopting the analytic lens of ‘probationary immigration’, this article explores the legal mechanisms behind three interrelated developments in both countries: 1) the fragmentation of protection regimes in terms of access, rights and duration; 2) stricter/less predictable requirements for permanent residence and citizenship; and 3) intensified practice regarding the revocation of citizenship.

Abstract This study examines the potential economic and labour market impacts of a hypothetical but plausible migration scenario of 250,000 new migrants inspired by Austria’s experience in 2015. Using the agent-based macroeconomic model developed by Poledna et al. (Eur Econ Rev, 151:104306, 2023. 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104306, the study explores the detailed labour market outcomes for different groups in Austria’s population and the macroeconomic effects of the migration scenario. The analysis suggests that Austria’s economy and labour market have the potential to be resilient to the simulated migration influx. The results indicate a positive impact on GDP due to increased aggregate consumption and investment. The labour market experiences an increase in the unemployment rates of natives and previous migrants. In some industries, the increase in the unemployment rates is more significant, potentially indicating competition among different groups of migrants. This research provides insights for policymakers and stakeholders in Austria and other countries that may face the challenge of managing large-scale migration in the near future.

Abstract Citizenship and residency laws in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries developed during a similar time period, with similar influences, and as a result had common characteristics. In recent years, this has begun to change, with new pathways to permanent residency and citizenship developing in the region. This paper takes a comparative case study approach to analyzing the policy changes in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and then explores the implications thereof. Broadening the pathways for permanent residency and citizenship offers opportunities (e.g., reversing financial outflows, increasing domestic investment and savings, attracting foreign direct investment and skilled talent) while it also presents risks (e.g., contesting traditional forms of belonging and entitlement, reducing social cohesion, and creating new forms of inequalities). While new pathways have indeed emerged, these pathways are designed for specific types of people, defined by the criteria or requirements of them. The unique policies of the three countries imply unique directions for the economies, demographic transitions, and socio-political cultures of the region.

Abstract Against the background of remarkable policy liberalization and the subsequent steep increase of forced displacement in Latin America, the literature on immigration and refugee policy in the region has gained momentum. Although largely overlooked, this literature has the potential to provide a corrective to political migration theory from the Global South. In this article we carry out a systematic, critical review of the regional literature along three thematic axes: legal analyses, normative and explanatory studies. Based on the review of 108 journal articles, we describe the characteristics, main contributions and research gaps of each thematic area. By analyzing legal norms and policy implementation gaps, existing studies on Latin America provide an understanding of migration policy over time and offer important empirical evidence for the advancement of political migration theory, challenging some of the main assumptions attributed to policies in the Global South. However, the lack of engagement with the broader literature and the absence of systematic analyses of its determinants and effects significantly limit the potential of this body of work. We close by making concrete suggestions of how future studies could fill existing gaps both in theoretical and empirical terms, and which methodological approach should be employed.

Abstract To care and feel cared for are considered fundamental to what makes us human, and what enables us to live and thrive in this world. Yet for the UK’s asylum-seeking population who is living with uncertainties for the future, care appears absent. In such contexts, it is imperative to understand how care is enacted, experienced, and valued amongst spaces and people often considered to be care-less. Drawing on data collected in four collaborative photographic workshops and photo elicitation interviews with asylum seekers and refugees (ASRs) (N: 7), this study aims to gain insight into how ASRs in the UK care and feel cared for and their relative ability to forge friendships during their migration journey. We show how their relationship to caregiving and care-receiving changes over time and is deeply influenced by asylum policies and the refugee experience more generally. Responding to feminist scholars’ calls to disrupt the normative assumptions about how and between whom care is exchanged, this article highlights the diversity of friendships forged while on the move and seeking asylum as well as the caring practices emerging in situations of precarity, the pervasive impacts of the hostile environment on disrupting and distorting such caring relationships, and cautious but agentic and caring ways that ASRs seek to navigate the ambiguities of friendships in hostility. In doing so, the article provides an important counter-narrative to the dominant portrayal of ASRs as passive recipients of care, by highlighting how their way to approach care and friendship varies across time and circumstances.