Towards Inclusive Migration and Social Policy Regimes — Conclusion

Abstract

Migration is one of the central policy challenges of the present and future as indicative from the increasing and widespread interest that issues of migration receive today in global policy debates, in reports by international organizations and in academic studies. In this volume, we have tried to contribute to this ongoing debate by focusing on two areas that fall broadly into the migration—development nexus but have not received sufficient attention so far: (1) the development implications of migration that occur between developing countries, that is, so-called South—South migration; and (2) the links between migration, social development and social policy. In the introductory chapter we have outlined the broad trends in the patterns of South—South migration and introduced some ideas on the relevance of social policy for developing countries in general and for a migration context in particular. The literature on developed welfare states and immigration issues, as well as the incipient research on portability of social security rights for migrants in different contexts, has further allowed us to identify possible entry points for future research. The individual chapters in this book constitute state-of-the-art analyses of existing studies on specific themes that are relevant to exploring the intersection between migration, social development and social policy — such as remittances, poverty, care and gender, skilled labour migration and political organizations. In the attempt to evaluate the implications of these phenomena and corresponding theoretical approaches in a South—South context, the final objective was for the authors to formulate research questions and identify research gaps in order to stimulate discussion and guide future studies.