Institutional contexts of the conditions of irregular migrants in Europe: A theoretical analysis

There is little knowledge on how and why the conditions of irregular migrants vary so dramatically across Europe. We argue that key to this variation are countries’ and sectors’ different institutional landscapes. While existing research has focused on the role of personal characteristics, such as gender and nationality, in shaping (irregular) migrants’ vulnerabilities and host community responses, we know much less about the role of variations in national labour market regulations, welfare states, migration regimes as well as sectoral policies. Understanding the effects of these institutional variations, and the interests with which they are associated, is also a critical precondition for effective national and EU policies on irregular migrants. This paper provides a theoretical analysis of these issues. We discuss how and why the prevailing institutional landscape may matter for the types of irregularity that emerge in migration and migrant labour markets, the conditions and effects of irregular migrants, and host countries politics and attitudes vis-à-vis-irregular migrants. Our analysis will pay attention to how today’s national institutional contexts, and their effects on the conditions of irregular migrants, have been shaped by historical policy legacies and spillover effects from past migration flows.