Measuring and comparing social and labour rights of irregular migrants across European countries

The movement of people across national borders in ways that are "irregular" - that is, in violation of national immigration laws on entry, residence and work – is a defining phenomenon of our times. In Europe today, there are an estimated 3-4 million irregular migrants, many of whom work and/or contribute to their host communities and economies. While some such migrants manage to integrate to an extent in local labour markets and societies, others suffer significant violations of their fundamental rights. Existing research points to substantial cross-national variation in the experiences and conditions of irregular migrants in European countries but there is an urgent need to develop more rich and systematic understandings of both the nature and causes of such variation. To that end, this paper will present the preliminary findings of a new index of the de jure social and labour rights of irregular migrants at the level of national law in the 27 EU Member States and in the UK. Patterns of rights protection, including protections for irregular migrants relative to citizens/permanent residents, will be analysed within a comparative institutionalist framework which focuses on the settings of national constitutional, political, labour market and welfare state systems. We interrogate the working hypotheses that national institutions ‘matter’ in shaping and differentiating the social and labour rights of irregular migrants, and that rights protection patterns for irregular migrants (both in absolute and relative terms) may cluster around different types of institutional configurations within European countries.