Precarity, work exploitation and inferior social rights: EU citizenship of Polish labour migrants in Norway

Abstract

ABSTRACT EU labour migrants enjoy comprehensive social rights while migrating within the block. However, research from various member states documents the presence of EU migrants who lack access to welfare support despite having lived and worked in these countries for years. This article explores why some EU migrants are excluded from welfare support despite a history of labour market participation in the host country. The phenomenon is studied through the lens of precarity, focusing on the nexus between precarious working conditions and migrants’ social rights. Based on participant observation and interviews with Polish labour migrants who struggled to access welfare benefits in Norway, the article shows, how precarious working conditions, including unstable employment, and work exploitation, such as wage theft, tax evasion and other breaches of Norwegian labour laws, function as barriers to successful benefit claims. Previous research has highlighted a divide in EU citizenship between labour migrants, who enjoy comprehensive social rights, and ‘economically inactive’ migrants, who have no or very limited social rights. This article argues that the divide runs through the working migrant population, protecting migrants in secure and stable employment while failing those in precarious work.