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Drawing on fieldwork in Greece, we examine the politics and practices of autonomous volunteering in the context of the migration crisis. This involves individuals engaging in activities to support migrants through non-registered, self-organized and self-governed groups that work independent from and in some cases, even in opposition to NGOs. We consider autonomous volunteering as a form of collective action and argue that it constitutes an alternative humanitarianism. While recent literature has sought to identify the rise of emergent practices of alternative humanitarianism in Europe, research has often overlooked how autonomous volunteers distinguish themselves from, relate to and collaborate with NGOs and conversely, how NGOs view and engage with them. We found that despite their critiques of NGOs and their determination to work independently, there were instances of cooperation between autonomous volunteers and NGOs. These interactions did not become substantive alliances, as the work of NGOs and autonomous volunteers continued to be disconnected from each other.

This article advances understanding of how transnational welfare has emerged in practice within and in relation to the nation-state framework, focusing on the responses of civil society actors to the European migration crisis in Greece. It draws on in-depth interviews with different types of civil society actors engaged in activities in Greece during and since the 2015 period of the migration crisis, including national and international NGOs, local solidarity groups, and international volunteers. The findings point to the ways in which transnational welfare through civil society actions arose in relation to the perceived crisis of the national state and inter-state system, in failing to address the needs of migrants and refugees but also Greek residents. However, transnational welfare also emerged through forms of collective action and identification that sought to counter the social boundaries of nation-state systems in relation to migration and welfare. It is argued that analyses of transnational welfare require attention to both those dimensions – that is, how civil society actions forge new meanings and ways of ‘doing’ welfare that may be trans-national in contesting the boundaries of nation-state systems, but also the limits to those actions in relation to the state.

Over recent years, there has been increasing attention to migration in social policy research. Uniting this research has been a focus on cross-national migration, and predominantly immigration. In the meantime, the relationship between human mobility and social policy at other scales and sites has gained much less attention. This is in spite of the salience of multiple forms of mobility and measures for restricting, facilitating or promoting mobility not confined to the territorial borders of the nation-state. This article proposes an alternative mobility perspective for social policy research that moves us beyond the limitations of current migration approaches. To do so, we draw on interdisciplinary mobilities theory and research. Empirically, we apply a mobility perspective to examine how systems of social provision are shaped by and shape mobility and immobility, in restricting, facilitating or promoting the movement of people. We argue that such an approach allows us to frame and address questions that place mobility and immobility as central to the social relations of welfare, advancing our understanding of how social policies can reduce or reinforce the inequalities of mobility.

While social policy falls predominantly under national rather than European Union (EU) jurisdiction, there are nonetheless multiple ways in which social policy and social outcomes in EU member states have been affected by EU membership. This paper draws on existing evidence and analysis to review the consequences for UK social policy of the decision to leave the EU. We focus predominantly on the implications of the British government’s pledge to ‘take back control’ of money, borders and laws. Our conclusion is that Brexit is likely to have negative effects on the quality of public services and, for some groups in particular, social rights, and that these effects are likely to be greater the more distant are the future trading and wider relationships between the UK and the EU27.

This chapter examines the contribution of research on migration and care labour to understanding the inequalities of care provision. It delves into how we are to understand those inequalities in relation to macro, meso and micro level relationships, policies and processes. At the same time, it considers the contestation of those inequalities, and in ways that make necessary connections between the claiming of rights in relation to migration, paid work and unpaid care. It is argued that an understanding of care inequalities and their contestation provides the basis for a ‘social transformation’ perspective on migration (Castles in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36: 1565–1586, 2010), situating migration in relation to wider social processes. Concurrently, in bringing a feminist approach to social transformation to the fore, the importance of understanding the local specificity of intersecting inequalities is also emphasised, to avoid reducing an understanding of global care inequalities to a simplified North/South binary.

This article examines the gendered effects of restricting EU migrants’ access to rights to residence and to social benefits in relation to work, self-sufficiency and family. It draws on the findings of qualitative research on EU migrant women’s access to social benefits in the U.K. on the basis of residence rights as an EU citizen-worker or family member of an EU citizen-worker. The research included qualitative interviews with providers of advice services on social benefits claims and with EU migrant women in the U.K. The findings point to the ways in which the status of the EU citizen-worker is defined and implemented limits women’s access to and ability to maintain that status and, at the same time, their reliance on the status of family member of an EU citizen-worker. Both have gendered effects in terms of women’s potential exclusion from access to residence and social rights as mobile EU citizens.

This concluding chapter looks at the debate on migration and so-called ‘benefit tourism’ from an explicit gender perspective, an often overlooked aspect in the debate. It examines how the aim of controlling migration led to the introduction of work-related conditions for benefit receipt that have restricted migrants' access to rights of residence and entitlement to social benefits in the UK. The emphasis on a particular relationship of migrants to the labour market privileges the high-income and continuously employed migrant worker, thus reinforcing women's risk of exclusion from access to social rights. Debates on so-called benefit tourism are thus not only misplaced, since access to income-related benefits is highly restricted in relation to work, but that the restrictions on migrants' access to rights and resources have strong gendered effects as regards who is excluded.

Increasing conditionality in access to welfare has been central to the reform of welfare states (Dean 2004; Dwyer 2004) and to the development of welfare-to-work policies and programmes (Peck 2001). This article addresses the ways in which the reform of employment services has, likewise, been marked by increasing conditionality in the financing of a market of those services. This form of conditionality involves the obligation of contracted providers to achieve employment outcomes as a condition of funding. The article examines how conditionality in the financing of employment services impacts on the provision of services to unemployed groups, and more disadvantaged groups in particular, and the implications for the social divisions of work and welfare.

This article contributes to an understanding of how conditionality applies across social security and immigration policies in restricting the access to social benefits of national citizens, EU and non-EU citizens. Specifically, the article builds on Clasen and Clegg's (2007) framework of conditionality in the context of welfare state reform by extending that conceptual framework to include migration. The framework is applied to examine how different levels of conditionality have been implemented in UK policy reforms to restrict access to rights of residence and to social benefits. It is argued that a conditionality approach moves beyond a binary of citizens and migrants in social policy analysis, contributing to an understanding of the dynamics and interactions of work-related conditions in restricting access to social benefits, with implications for inequalities that cut across national, EU and non-EU citizens in terms of the relationship of particular groups to the market.

This article contributes to an understanding of how different institutional contexts produce similar outcomes as regards the employment of migrant workers in care work. It examines how the employment of migrant care workers in both the familial provision of care and the formal provision of care services for older people is shaped, first, by the marketisation of care and, second, by immigration controls. The analysis draws on data on the employment of migrant care workers by families in Italy and by providers of residential and home care services in the UK. It is argued that marketisation processes and immigration controls have contributed to the employment of migrant workers across so-called informal/formal types of care provision, and irregular/regular types of care work and migration. While the institutional contexts in which migrant care labour is located may differ, converging outcomes are evident regarding the structural positioning of migrant workers within the provision of care for older people.

Migrant care workers make a substantial contribution to older adult care in Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK). However, little is known about the relational aspects of care involving migrant care workers and older people. Given that the care relationship is closely linked to quality of care, and that the Irish and UK sectors are increasingly restricted by economic austerity measures, this lack of information is a concern for care practice and policy. Our paper explores the relationship between migrant care workers and older people in Ireland and the UK and draws on data collected in both countries, including focus groups with older people (N = 41), interviews with migrant care workers (N = 90) and data from a survey of and interviews with employers. The findings illustrate the complexity of the migrant care worker–older person relationship; the prevalence of need orientated, friendship and familial-like, reciprocal, and discriminatory interlinking themes; and the role of individual, structural and temporal factors in shaping these relationships.

In recent decades, rapid population ageing has dramatically increased the need for older adult care provision in the UK. A prominent role in meeting the care needs of the older population has been played by migrant workers. The aim of this paper is to explore the characteristics of the UK social care system that shape demand for migrant labour, the conditions under which migrant care workers are employed, and older people’s and migrant care workers’ experiences of the quality of care. Our analysis draws on the findings of a survey of providers of social care for older people, in-depth interviews with migrant care workers, and focus groups with older people. The findings show that the underfunding of social care and interrelated workforce shortages are largely responsible for the extensive reliance on migrant workers among social care providers, and raise concerns for workforce inequalities and for the quality of care.

Chapter 3 by Anderson brings into focus the ways in which immigration controls are as much about the construction of the internal borders of nation states as they are about the construction of external borders. With respect to labour markets, immigration controls determine not only who is permitted entry to the nation state as a worker but the terms and conditions of their entry, shaping not only access to the labour market but also the social relations of labour. With respect to welfare states, immigration controls likewise determine not only who is permitted access to social provisions but also the terms and conditions of access, shaping the social relations of welfare. The chapter also highlights the ways in which immigration controls are not simply about ‘us and them’ (to quote Anderson’s earlier work, 2013) — about citizens vs non-citizens — they profoundly shape the social relations of citizenship. While the development of welfare states may have granted citizens social rights, those rights were underpinned by different assumptions about the relationship between work and welfare, conferring minimal rights to the poor, compensatory rights to workers or more universal rights to citizens (Dean, 2002; Esping-Andersen, 1990).

Migrant labour has increasingly played a role in the provision of care for older people across Europe, and in other countries and regions (Bettio et al., 2006; Cangiano et al., 2009; Leon, 2010; Michel and Peng, 2012; Osterle and Hammer, 2007). The employment of migrant, ‘non-citizen’ workers in care provision has taken place in the context of, on the one hand, increasing demand for care and, on the other, the marketization of care provision in many countries (Shutes and Chiatti, 2012). In England, marketization processes have involved both the expansion of private sector providers of publicly and privately funded care services for older people, including residential and home care services, and the expansion of the purchasing of care services directly by older people and their families, including the employment of care workers in private households (Shutes and Chiatti, 2012). It has likewise taken place in the context of increasing diversification of the immigration status and the rights and entitlements of non-citizens, including migrant care workers (Spencer, 2011).

Cross-national analyses of care for older people have sought to identify different models of care according to the role of the state in the public provision of paid or ‘formal’ care services and benefits, and the role of the family in the provision of unpaid or ‘informal’ care (Anttonen and Sipila, 1996; Carrera et al., 2013; Timonen, 2005). The role of the market in the provision of care for older people is likewise increasingly evident across European countries (Brennan et al., 2012; Pavolini and Ranci, 2008). The ‘welfare mix’ of care for older people, regarding the roles of the state, market, voluntary sector and family has implications both for those receiving care and those providing care (Daly and Lewis, 2000). Variation in the welfare mix, not only across countries but within systems of care for older people in different national contexts, have implications for who provides care and the conditions under which care is provided within that system. Care for older people depends both on a paid workforce and on unpaid carers and volunteers — paid and unpaid work which is highly gendered. The provision of care is labour intensive: within paid care services, labour costs are estimated to make up half the costs of home care provision and between half and two thirds of the costs of residential care (Beesley, 2006). The quality of care is likewise relationship intensive: social relations in giving and receiving care being integral to the quality of provision (Glendinning and Bell, 2008). The costs and the quality of the care system are therefore highly dependent on the care workforce.

Within the article by Shutes (first published online, 15 September 2011) the Author's affiliation was incorrectly inserted during the production process. The correct affiliation is the ESRC Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford, and the Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science. The publisher apologises for any inconvenience this has caused.