Migration Policy Reform Research Articles

International Migration and Migration Policy Reforms

The article examines the problems of regulating illegal migration by developed countries and the European Union, the achievements that cause not always correct criticism, and the possibilities of using the experience of a number of countries and new approaches in this regulation are shown. Particular attention is paid to international organizations dealing with the problems of international migration. It was concluded that there is no clear division of their functions by type of migration, which prevents the formation of long-term policies. Proposals were formulated to strengthen the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in rule-making and norm-setting on labor migration, which plays an increasingly important role in sustainable development. It was concluded that it is necessary to change the status of the migration conventions, otherwise effective regulation of labor migration is impossible. The countries of the Persian Gulf that attract external labor immigrants despite the rapid growth of the local population are highlighted. The difference in countries’ policies towards labor migration in the 21st century compared to the 20th century is shown. The concept of “fiduciary duty” of federal governments in relation to external migration was introduced.

Reshaping unfairness perceptions: Evidence from China's Hukou reform

This study investigates the impact of China's 2014 Hukou reform, which significantly relaxed barriers to internal migration, on local urban residents' perceptions of unfairness. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, we find that exposure to increased in-migration following the reform heightened locals' perceptions of unfair treatment due to wealth inequality and Hukou status. Locals also expressed less tolerance for wealth gaps and reduced materialistic wealth recognition. These shifts in social attitudes indicate that inter-group contact through migration can reshape native residents' notions of fairness and equity. Our findings suggest implementing progressive policies may become more feasible in the wake of migration reforms by altering social views. Overall, our work sheds light on the societal impacts of internal migration and Hukou policy reforms in China.

Реформирование политики убежища и контроля нелегальной миграции: общеевропейский и польский подход

This article considers the development of pan-European and Polish asylum policy and control of illegal migration after the peak of the migration crisis in 2015–16. A sharp increase in the migration burden on the European Union (EU) during this period revealed systemic problems of political regulation of migration in the EU and provoked a confrontation of the interests of national and supranational actors. Despite the decline of migration flows from developing countries in Africa and Asia, the migration policy crisis has worsened over time. It is shown that the consistent position of Poland, coupled with the consolidation of the Visegrad Group, had a noticeable impact on the direction of migration policy reform. This study is based on the regulation acts of the EU, the new Migration and Asylum Pact, the diagnostic document of the Polish migration policy, and other programme documents that are positioned as the basis for the upcoming reforms. The results of the analysis of the provisions concerning the asylum policy and the control of illegal migration indicate that a compromise between national and supranational interests is emerging. The documents reviewed give priority to securitization and to reducing the risks of potential migration crises. The key mechanism for the implementation of the latter is the externalization of migration policy by creating a buffer zone in the Balkan countries, North Africa, and Turkey, which will be entrusted to coordinate migration flows and contain them in case of a crisis. Nevertheless, these measures will require not only a significant increase in financial costs, but also an even greater increase in the role of supranational actors, primarily Frontex and the European Union Agency for Asylum, by expanding their powers in EU members. For its part, Poland sees this as a challenge to national sovereignty, as well a risk to national and regional security. The confrontation of national and supranational interests carries risks for the much-needed reform of the aspects of migration policy under consideration and decreases the chances of successfully overcoming possible migration crisis

Too Little, Too Slow – An Analysis of 2022’s Developments in the EU’s Migration and Asylum Policy

Migration and asylum are two of the most challenging issues in Europe. With every crisis, new shortcomings are exposed. However, actions taken by the European Union and its Member States have proven that common migration and asylum policy remains a distant goal. In the presented paper, the author analyses developments in the European Union migration and asylum policy of 2022, stating that, despite the momentum caused by the support given to Ukrainians with temporary protection, hopes for comprehensive asylum and migration policy reform should be toned down, despite the end of the legislative period looming on the horizon.

Did Labor Migration Policy Reform or Perform? A Tale of Circular Migration in India During COVID-19

There were many policies that the Government of India framed to help migrant workers during the pandemic period with work, food, travel, and shelter needs that arose by virtue of their informal nature of work. These policies and schemes included Free Food Grains, MGNREGA, shelter homes, and shramik trains to help the migrant workers tide over joblessness and hunger. The authors are intrigued by the decision of the migrant workers to return to cities of work destination even in light of the poorly performing and reforming policies that intended facilitation but remained dissevering. Witnessing an increase in the trend of returnee migrant workers, we are motivated to understand the decisions made by these workers to return and re-join, or recreate previous or new work with an unanticipated change in factors that led to their decision to leave (circular migration). Our interviews with a sample of 30 returnee migrant workers helped us enlist the push and the pull factors that led to the decisions to return to work cities amidst their experience of supportless governance systems. The study exposes us to the informal migrant workers’ core vulnerabilities and the governance ecosystem's insensitivities that grossly overlook citizens' plight due to their bias towards denizens.

The Efficiencies and Inequities of Australia's Temporary Labour Migration Regime

AbstractThis article examines the benefits and costs of Australia's labour migration policies. While previous economics studies have demonstrated the efficiency‐related benefits of these policies, this article analyses the consequences for worker voice and equity, which employment relations scholars have identified as important labour market policy goals. We argue that the efficiency‐related benefits of labour migration policy reforms, particularly the expansion of temporary visa schemes, have been generated in part by barriers to temporary migrant workers' access to representation and social rights. This situation has contributed to an increase in the underpayment and mistreatment of temporary migrant workers by employers.

The Pact on Migration and Asylum as a the foundation of the new migration policy of the European Union

The relevance of the selected topic is substantiated by the fact that in modern world migration has become a significant factor in the development of both accepting countries and countries of origin. Europe hosts the largest number of migrants. Since 2015, the EU member-states have been experiencing strong migration pressure. The existing migration stands in need for reform. The New Pact on Migration and Asylum should be a significant step towards creating a reliable and effective system for regulation of migration. The subject of this research is the institutional and legal characteristics of the EU New Pact on Migration and Asylum. The article analyzes the proposals of the European Commission regarding the migration policy reform, as well as the political-legal mechanism for their implementation; contradictions between the member-states in the course of the relevant discussions. The following conclusions are made: 1) It must be admitted that the new approach of the European Commission is comprehensive and aimed at integration of the internal and external aspects of migration policy. 2) The structure of the Pact corresponds to the goals of migration policy and consists on three levels – external, namely relations with the countries of origin and transit of migrants; control over the external borders of the EU; a new system of permanent solidarity. 3) As an annex to the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, the European Commission has presented a roadmap for implementation of various proposals. However, by the end of 2021, the schedule for the adoption of legal documents is not being maintained. 4) The only common denominator between the different groups of countries is the orientation towards external actions aimed at curbing migration movements prior to their arrival to Europe. 5) The plan of the European Commission on adoption of rules obligatory for all member-states currently seems untenable, considering the clashing interests.

Implementation of Turkish Foreign Policies and Government Support as Driving Forces of Promoting International Students

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the implementation of Turkish foreign policies and the government support as the key drivers of promoting international students to study in Turkey. As a way of internationalization of higher education, the study also reviewed the recent development of migration policies and the Grand Student Projects Support as related to the trends of international student movement in Turkey as compared to the other countries in the world. In this literature review article, a search for required and reliable source of information has been made with regard to the subject area using computer and electronic databases; Organization for Co-operation and Development (OECD), Routledge, SAGE, Council of Higher Education of Turkey (CoHE) and The Ministry of National Education of Turkey (MoNE), UNESCO Institution for statistics, Turkish National Education Statistics and other reliable sources. The study findings indicate that the Turkish government and higher education institutions (HEIs) continue to recognize the importance of international students as their number increased more doubled than in the past two decades. The growing number of international students studying in Turkey has largely been driven by the Turkish scholarship initiative programs and migration policy reforms. Further, student immigration plays major role in strengthening peace friendly and the tie between Turkey and other nations by demonstrating the educational and cultural interest.

Bossing or Protecting? The Integration of Social Regulation into the Welfare State

This article is an empirical analysis of how social regulation is integrated into the welfare state. I compare health, migration, and unemployment policy reforms in Australia, Austria, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States from 1980 to 2014. Results show that the timing of reform events is similar among countries for health and unemployment policy but differs among countries for migration policy. For migration and unemployment policy, the integration of regulation and welfare is more likely to entail conditionality compared to health policy. In other words, in these two policy fields, it is more common that claimants receive financial support upon compliance with social regulations. Liberal or Continental European welfare regimes are especially inclined to integration. I conclude that integrating regulation and welfare entails a double goal: “bossing” citizens by making them take up available jobs while expelling migrants and refugees for minor offenses; and protecting citizens from risks, such as noncommunicable diseases.

How bureaucracies shape access to rights: the implementation of family reunification in Belgium

ABSTRACT Throughout the European Union, national governments are amending family reunification laws in order to restrict migration flows. Migration scholars point out that the judiciary is one of the factors hindering migration policy reforms from having the restrictive outcomes intended by national governments. This literature, however, tends to neglect what happens after legislative texts are written down and overlooks the continuation of the policy-making process during the implementation phase. Drawing on street-level bureaucracy literature, I address this gap by focusing on the impact of court decisions on street-level actors implementing family reunification in Belgium. Relying on ethnographic methods, I have conducted extensive fieldwork in the Immigration Office, the Belgian public agency which processes the applications for family reunification. The empirical material reveals that migration officers’ response to court rulings is based on collective representations of case law rather than on court rulings per se. Such findings shed light on the role of the administration and in particular, the collective production of meanings by the administration.

Migration Diplomacy and Policy Liberalization in Morocco and Turkey

This article examines the 2013 migration policy liberalizations in Morocco and Turkey in order to understand whether predominantly “human rights-centric” or “diplomatic” factors influenced domestic decisions to reform migration policies. It uses original interview data collected in 2015, as well as policy documents, to examine the two reform processes and their initial consequences for migrants and refugees residing in each host state. While the academic literature on migration has focused on human rights-centric factors to understand historic migration policy reforms, Turkey and Morocco’s geopolitical and geographic positions between powerful neighbors to the north and important sending countries to the south mean that diplomatic factors are also key to understanding the incentives behind reform. This article’s findings have important implications for scholars of international migration, demonstrating that while countries like Morocco and Turkey may implement liberal and inclusive policies if there are diplomatic and economic gains to be had from doing so, such policies may have little impact on the everyday lives of individual migrants and refugees residing in these states and may be subject to reversals if such states’ geopolitical calculations change.

Mexican Migration to the United States: Selection, Assignment, and Welfare

This paper analyzes how migration policy reforms shape migrants' self-selection and, through that, affect welfare and wage inequality in the sending and destination countries. First, we document that the distribution of wages among U.S. workers dominates the distribution of wages among Mexican immigrants in the hazard rate order. Second, we show that if this condition holds, then the standard assignment model predicts that the effciency and equality goals of migration policy are in conflict. Finally, we develop and calibrate a two-country extension of the assignment model with endogenous migration, and use it to quantify the implications of migration policy reforms.

Variation in policy success: radical right populism and migration policy

How do radical right populist parties influence government policies in their core issue of immigration? This article provides a systematic analysis of the direct and indirect effects of radical right anti-immigration parties on migration policy reforms in 17 West European countries from 1990 to 2014. Insights from migration policy theory serve to explain variations in the migration policy success of the radical right. While previous studies mostly treat migration policy as uniform, it is argued that this approach neglects the distinct political logics of immigration and integration policy. This article reveals significant variations in policy success by policy area. While immigration policies have become more liberal despite the electoral success of the radical right, when the radical right is in government office it enacts more restrictions in integration policies. Accordingly, anti-immigrant mobilisation is more likely to influence immigrants’ rights than their actual numbers.

Entrepreneurial response to changing opportunity structures

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse how the introduction of a liberalised regime for labour immigration in Sweden affected the self-selection of new immigrant entrepreneurs and to what extent the changes in entrepreneurial income among new immigrants was due to self-selection or to a changing business environment.Design/methodology/approachBased on rich microdata from Swedish administrative registers, this paper investigates how incomes changed during the years before and after the migration policy reform. By decomposing the income differential of new immigrant entrepreneurs arriving before and after the reform, this study estimates the contribution of a changed composition of migrants to the changing entrepreneurial income.FindingsEntrepreneurial income among self-employed new immigrants improved after the reform, narrowing the immigrant–native income gap, while among employees, the income gap remained during the whole period of the study. Out of the total 10.9 per cent increase in log income, the authors find that 2.7 per cent was due to selectivity, i.e., changing characteristics of new immigrant entrepreneurs. The remaining 8.2 per cent was due to increased returns to characteristics, i.e., the characteristics of new immigrant entrepreneurs were better rewarded in the markets in the latter period. Hence, increases in entrepreneurial income among new immigrants were due both to self-selection and changes in the business environment.Practical implicationsThe authors find that the migration policy reform had the effect of attracting successful immigrant entrepreneurs. Hence, the findings have implications for migration policy as well as for growth and employment policy.Originality/valueThis paper reveals a positive trend regarding income from the entrepreneurship of new immigrants after the liberalisation of labour immigration policy in Sweden. Theoretically and methodologically, the authors combine self-selection theory and the mixed-embeddedness perspective in a novel way, using rich data and a quantitative approach.

EU in the face of migrant crisis: Reasons for ineffective human rights protection

Despite the fact that EU was acknowledged to ensure human rights protection level equivalent to the one ensured under European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), it is doubtful if the EU was able to ensure human rights in time of recent migrant crisis. It is argued in the Article that, absence of comprehensive EU-level migrant policy restricted EU's ability to prevent the crisis and to mitigate its consequences as well as human rights violations. In addition, being oriented to ex post rights defense, EU's system was also practically unsuitable to defend the rights of the asylum seekers after the violations actually occurred. It is proposed that EU should address migration issues immediately by introducing major migration policy reform.

Drivers of migration policy reform: The day off policy for migrant domestic workers in Singapore

While there has been much debate on Singapore’s migration policies, a ‘black box’ continues to surround policymaking decisions. This article examines the dynamics of migration policy reforms in Singapore, using the case study of the mandatory weekly day off policy for migrant domestic workers. Designing our analysis around the three ‘Is’ – ideas, interests and institutions – we argue that the inclusion and formalisation of migrant rights in the policy sphere entails the framing of migrant rights in a manner that appeals to Singapore’s institutional logics and cultural repertoire; prioritising the needs and interests of citizens in the policy calculus; and institutional readiness and conviction to the cause.

Between Europe and Africa: Morocco as a country of immigration

ABSTRACTIn September 2013, the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, made an announcement that startled the country’s civil society: Morocco would be reforming its national migration policy. Specifically, he called for the drafting of a new comprehensive policy on immigration with the intention of providing a path to regularization for migrants, the majority of whom originate from West African states. Why did the Moroccan government suddenly change its approach to migration, and what consequences has this had for civil society and for migrants and refugees residing in Morocco? While explanations for the migration policy reform tend to focus on the role of the European Union, a secondary explanation is Morocco’s desire to play a leading role in Africa, both economically and geopolitically. Using approximately fifty interviews conducted between January and April 2015 in Rabat, Morocco, this study analyzes the reform process and examines competing explanations, paying particular attention to regional power structures, bilateral relations between Morocco and its West African and European neighbors, and domestic decision-making apparatuses.

Migration policy reforms in the context of economic and political crises: the case of Belgium

ABSTRACTA body of literature has examined the role of ‘crises’ on policy-making. Yet, we observe that endogenous or exogenous events called ‘crisis-events’ are often randomly chosen as sweeping explanations for reforms in migration and integration policy. Thus, we attempt to find answers for the question of how the latest financial and economic crisis affected policy-making in the area of migration and integration. We apply a combination of interest-based and ideas-based theories to the case of Belgium in order to question the role of crises in policy reforms in the field of migration and integration. Multiple political and economic crises have affected the country since 2007. Examining these crises and immigration politics we argue that electoral competition both between and within the Francophone and Flemish party systems continues to be the main driver of migration and integration policy reform. Yet, we also discover a cumulative effect of economic and political crises: while the intention of restricting immigration has remained largely unchanged over the years, the policy instruments employed to reach this objective have changed with the political and economic crises.

Preferenser och intressen hos Svenskt Näringsliv och Landsorganisationen om arbetskraftsinvandring under 2000-talets inledning

Preferences and interests of SN and LO about labour migration in the early 2000sThe article uses a political economy approach to analyze the preferences of the social partners SN and LO and to identify the coincided and disparate interests which the two organizations tried to defend in relation to labour migration in the debate prior to the Swedish labour migration policy reform in 2008. In contrast to presumptions by Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) scholars,the results of this article reveal that SN has preferred a market-liberal labour migration policy regime at odds with institutional traditions of the Swedish labour market model. However, LO has instead preferred a state-coordinated and regulated labour migration policy regime. In contrast to SN, LO’s preferences reflected basic trade union interests to limit the supply of labour and to minimize potential negative effects for the functioning of the Swedish labour market model. Moreover, the article suggests the importance of changed power relations between the social partners and a shift of Swedish government to explain SN’s influence in the debate prior to the labour migration policy change 2008 in a market-liberal direction.

Social Rights and Migrant Realities: Migration Policy Reform and Migrants’ Access to Health Care in Costa Rica, Argentina, and Chile

Immigration poses a significant challenge to states’ existing social protection systems, especially in developing countries that are already struggling to provide social services for their citizens. In particular, immigration produces a tension between citizenship rights—those extended only to citizens, and social rights—rights extended by the state to others within their national territory. Immigration raises questions not only about the rights and access of migrants to health and other social services but also the level and quality of provisions to citizens. We draw on literatures on welfare regimes in Latin America, welfare magnets, and the legitimacy of social rights to examine the nexus of migration and health care policy in Costa Rica, Argentina, and Chile—three countries that have recently pursued immigration reform. We argue that variation in the extension of immigrants’ social rights to health is explained by the interaction of existing migration and social policies, the nature of the health care system in each country, and, in some cases, international and regional norms.