Rights from the margins: Migrant welfare rights in comparative perspective

Immigration studies have developed typologies of welfare provision available to migrants, the most significant of which to date are Sainsbury (2012) and Pennings and Seeleib (2018). However, these studies focus on particular visas, at key points in time, rather than the full array of temporary and permanent visas and their variation over time. Further, accurately understanding the intersection of welfare-migration nexus is legally complex, requiring construction of detailed legislative and legal regimes. In the study of the welfare-immigration nexus, the devil is in the detail. In this paper, an interdisciplinary political science and legal team presents a fresh methodology to analyse welfare provision to migrants across country, visa type and where relevant, sub-national unit. Welfare studies generally must face the challenge of defining what welfare is (Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2018). This paper takes a capacious definition of welfare that includes not only cash benefits but also services and access to education for school-age migrant children. It explores this methodology through preliminary examination of three most-different welfare and immigration systems: Australia, the UK, and Italy have varied temporary migration landscapes. Australia has the highest rates of economic-based migration of the three. Italy has faced unique pressures with humanitarian and undocumented migration from North Africa. The UK provides an example of a country that has moved from a closed to an open migration state, during the 1990s, and closing again with Brexit in 2020. The welfare systems of these three countries also vary. In developing this methodology, the paper presents fresh and more accurate ways to consider the rights of those at the margin and the intertemporal dynamics in provision.