Migrant deprivation, conditionality of legal status and the welfare state

an article by Owen Corrigan Trinity College Dublin, Ireland published in Journal of European Social Policy Volume 24 Number 3 (July 2014)

Abstract

This article adds to our theoretical understanding of the determination of third-country national (TCN) migrant deprivation and poverty in western Europe. The stratifying effects of different types of legal status on migrant outcomes have been established in previous research. The conditionality that states attach to securing different types of legal status has heretofore been overlooked as an important explanatory factor, however.

A measure of the conditionality attached to attaining the key social rights–granting status of long-term residency (LTR) is operationalized using cross-national policy data. Building on existing theory, we hypothesize that the negative impact of welfare generosity on TCN material deprivation is moderated by a state’s level of LTR conditionality, such that deprivation will be greatest where conditionality is high and generosity is low.

This hypothesis is tested using large-scale European microdata in the context of multilevel modelling.

The empirical results are consistent with the central hypothesis.

These findings have implications for policymakers and for extant accounts of migrant welfare, the welfare state and the factors implicated in the determination of poverty and deprivation in Europe.

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Lone parents, poverty and policy in the European Union

an article by Yekaterina Chzhen (University of Oxford, UK) and Jonathan Bradshaw (University of York, UK) published in Journal of European Social Policy volume 22 Number 5 (December 2012)

Abstract

Although there is considerable research evidence to show that children in lone-parent families are at increased risk of poverty, there have been few comparative analyses of lone parents in Europe.

Using the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2009, this paper compares the prevalence and characteristics of lone-parent families, analyses the poverty and deprivation risks of children, and evaluates the potential impact of social transfer income packages on child poverty reduction.

We use the unique personal identifiers of mothers, fathers and partners to define lone-parent families with greater precision. Using a multi-level framework, we find lower child poverty rates in countries with more generous social transfers, even after controlling for the country standard of living.

A reverse pattern is observed for material deprivation: the negative effect of social transfer income washes out when the GDP per capita is controlled for, which itself has a negative and significant effect on material deprivation.

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