Nation-States, Labor Immigration, and Migrant Rights
What Can We Expect?
How can we expect high-income countries to regulate the rights of migrant workers as part of their labor immigration policies? What are the likely relationships between policies for regulating the admission (openness and selection) and rights of migrant workers? Addressing these questions requires a theoretical framework for conceptualizing the potential determinants and mechanics of national labor immigration policymaking. This chapter develops a simple, flexible model of labor immigration policy and suggests testable hypotheses for empirical analysis.
The chapter is divided into three parts. It begins with a discussion of the potential objectives of labor immigration policies in high-income countries, and the extent to which nation-states can be perceived and analyzed as actors with independent “agency”—that is, with the capability of formulating and designing policy to pursue a set of national policy objectives. The second part of the chapter analyzes the major factors and institutions that constrain nation-states’ capacity and formal authority to regulate the admission and rights of migrant workers, and mediate the ways in which the pursuit of certain policy objectives translates into actual policies.
Based on this conceptual framework of choice under constraints, the third part of the chapter develops three hypotheses about the relationships between high-income countries’ policies for regulating the admission (openness and skills) and rights of migrant workers: labor immigration programs that target higher-skilled migrants are more open (i.e., less restrictive) to labor immigration than those targeting lower-skilled migrants; some of the rights of migrant workers are positively related to the skill level targeted by the labor immigration program under which migrants are admitted—that is, programs targeting higher-skilled migrants grant more rights than those targeting lower-skilled migrants; and there can be a trade-off (a negative relationship) between openness and some of the rights of some migrant workers admitted to high-income countries—that is, greater openness to admitting migrant workers will be associated with relatively fewer rights for migrants and vice versa.
The Objectives of Labor Immigration Policy
International labor migration generates a complex set of economic, social, political, cultural, and other consequences for individuals, communities, and countries as a whole. Consequently, the potential objectives of labor immigration policy are numerous and multifaceted. Broadly speaking, they could relate to four types of impacts on residents of the host country: economic efficiency; distribution; national identity and social cohesion; and national security and public order.
Economic Efficiency
Economic efficiency refers to the goal of maximizing the net-economic benefits (i.e., benefits minus costs) from immigration for the incomes and living standards of the residents of the host country. Many high-income countries are engaged in heated debates about whether and how immigration can be economically beneficial to the host country. Economic research suggests a wide range of impacts, some of which are better understood and more easily measurable than others. Four economic effects are most frequently discussed. First, a key insight of economic theory is that the immigration of workers whose skills and other factor endowments (e.g., capital) are, on average, different from those of existing residents, can create production complementarities that increase the national and average incomes among residents of the host country.1
A related second effect pertains to the role that migrant workers can play in responding to labor and skills shortages in specific sectors and/or occupations. Linking labor immigration to the “needs” of the domestic labor market is an important policy goal in most countries. What these needs are, how they vary across sectors and occupations, and how they change during periods of economic growth and downturn are highly contested. Research has shown that skills and shortages can be slippery concepts that are hard to measure, and immigration is typically only one—and not always the best—of various possible responses to shortages.2
Third, immigration can also generate difficult-to-measure external and spillover effects that may arise from, for example, having a bigger economy (that is, a higher GDP), a more diverse society, a greater share of highly skilled and motivated people, a higher population density, and more congested living spaces.3 In theory, such dynamic and/or spillover effects could be positive or negative—that is, they could raise or lower the productivity and average incomes of the resident population.
Fourth, the effects of migrants on public finances also shape the net economic impacts of immigration on existing residents. Whether or not migrants are a burden or boon for the welfare state and public finances depends on the difference between the taxes they pay and the costs of public services and benefits that migrants consume—issues that are much contested and central to immigration debates in many high-income countries, especially those with extensive welfare states.4
Immigration not only affects the size of national income but also its distribution. In the short run, immigration creates economic winners and losers among existing residents. The winners typically include employers who benefit from the increased supply of labor along with some consumers who may gain from the lower prices of products and services whose production/provision is intensive in the use of migrant workers. Potential losers include resident workers who are similar to migrant workers in terms of their skills and therefore may compete with migrants in the labor market. Whether and how immigration affects the wages as well as employment opportunities of resident workers, and profit margins of employers, is an empirical question that critically depends on the time frame adopted. Adverse effects that can occur in the short run, such as lower wages and reduced employment opportunities, may be partially or fully reversed in the longer run when the economy adjusts to immigration through an increase in the demand for labor.5
In practice, distributional considerations have played a significant and sometimes predominant role in public debates over labor immigration. This is reflected in popular concerns about “cheap migrants driving down wages” and migrants “stealing resident workers’ jobs.” Although the relative importance of distributional effects varies across time and place, policymakers are unlikely to be able to implement policies without considering their consequences for both economic efficiency and distribution. This is also reflected in the recommendations of policy-oriented research on labor immigration. For example, in the context of Canadian immigration policy, Don DeVoretz (2008) proposes a policy goal of maximizing economic gains to resident Canadians without reducing the welfare of the bottom fifth of Canadian society. Similarly, in their discussion of the objectives of EU-wide immigration policies, Tito Boeri and Herbert Brücker (2005, 673) argue that the optimal EU policy should “trade off production efficiency against a minimization of undesirable effects on income distribution in the receiving country.”
National Identity and Social Cohesion
Immigration generates a wide range of social and cultural impacts that are often explored under the heading of national identity and/or social cohesion. These are ambiguous and contested concepts that are hard to define, and even harder to measure in practice. National identity may be loosely defined as the shared set of beliefs and values of a country’s residents. The meaning and substance assigned to national identity—and thus the way in which international migration may impact it—largely depend on how the existing residents of countries “see themselves.” For instance, in countries with long histories of immigration, such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, national identity arguably may be partly defined by cultural diversity, thus making immigration a potential tool for preserving or even increasing that diversity. In contrast, a receiving country that sees itself as culturally homogeneous, such as Japan and Korea, may view the immigration of people with different cultural backgrounds as “diluting” its national identity. Importantly, the construction of a country’s national identity can go beyond collective outcomes and include the protection of individuals’ rights, sometimes as one of the defining features. The Unites States is one of many examples.
Social cohesion is an equally ambiguous concept that has nonetheless become a standard term in immigration debates in a wide range of high-income countries, especially but not exclusively in Europe. As is the case with national identity, there is no one definition of social cohesion, whose meaning as well as interpretation—and hence how immigration is perceived to impact it—can be variable and context specific. A recent book on social cohesion in Australia suggests that “social cohesion reflects the strength of shared values, a sense of common identity and of belonging to the same community.”6 The United Kingdom’s Commission on Integration and Cohesion (2006, 38) defined cohesion loosely as “principally the process that must happen in all communities to ensure different groups of people get on well together.”
In theory, immigration may have positive or negative effects on social cohesion, however defined. In practice, debates in high-income countries have usually focused on the potential adverse effects of the arrival of newcomers. For example, the United Kingdom recently debated whether immigration is making Britain too diverse to sustain the mutual obligations behind a good society and the welfare state.7 A commentary by Samuel Huntington (2004), titled “The Hispanic Challenge,” ignited a similar debate in the United States. There is a growing body of research, with mixed conclusions, on the relationship between immigration, diversity, and social cohesion.8
National Security and Public Order
Although not new, concerns about the impacts of immigration on national security have gained in importance in many high-income countries over the past decade. For example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, the 7/7 bombings in the United Kingdom, and the recent mass killings in Norway have had significant impacts on immigration policy debates in North America and Europe. Efforts to “localize” the predominantly foreign labor force in most oil-rich Gulf states of the Middle East are partly motivated by security concerns about hosting a foreign population that is larger than the citizenry. In the European Union, “border management” is a key aspect of “ensuring the security of Europe,” as described in the recent Action Plan for the Implementation of the Stockholm Program, which sets the priorities for developing the European area of freedom, security, and justice in the next five years.
Related to national security, the impact of immigration on public order and especially crime is another frequently discussed, controversial topic of public debate in most high-income countries. There are many instances of how specific criminal incidents involving migrants have triggered heated debates about the alleged adverse impacts of immigration on crime. In some cases, allegations of crimes committed by migrants have directly led to policy initiatives. For example, in the United States, Arizona’s recent bill granting police officers wide-ranging powers to stop and check the immigration status of individuals was critically influenced by the murder of an Arizona rancher allegedly committed by an illegally resident immigrant in March 2010.
Public perceptions that immigration increases crime and is a threat to national security are common.9 Research suggests that whether and how immigration impacts crime critically depends on the characteristics of migrants, which makes the selection of migrants and other policies aimed at shaping immigration flows important considerations from a domestic crime perspective. Similarly, while it is clear that international migration can provide new opportunities for transnational criminal networks and international political movements that use violence and terror to achieve their goals, it cannot simply be assumed that immigration has negative impacts on national security.10 There are a number of ways in which immigration may enhance national security and defense capacities through, say, increasing GDP (and thus potential military spending) and the number of people (migrants and citizens) available for recruitment to the military.11 Migrants can also enhance a state’s military strength by providing technical and intelligence expertise.12
Objectives Relating to the Interests of Migrants and Their Countries of Origin
All of the four broad objectives discussed above relate to the impacts of labor migration on migrant-receiving countries. The logic of nation-states and citizenship implies that countries must prioritize the interests of their own citizens over those of noncitizens and nonresidents. Yet the objectives of labor immigration policy in receiving countries could, and many argue should, also take at least some account of the interests of actual and prospective migrants as well as their countries of origin. These interests could include, for example, the economic and social integration of migrants in the host country, the maximization of the benefits of migrants’ remittances, and the minimization of costs arising from the loss of skilled workers (“brain drain”) for sending countries.
As explored in more detail in chapter 6 of this book, there is a large and rapidly expanding literature on the consequences of migration for migrants and their countries of origin. Richard Freeman (2006) suggests that wages of workers in high-income countries typically exceed those of workers in similar jobs in low-income countries by four to twelve times. These international wage differences mean that migrants can significantly raise their productivity and make large financial gains from employment abroad. Although it is clear that emigration cannot be a magic bullet to address deep-rooted development problems, if used effectively, remittances and other transfers that migrants make back to their home countries can be of great benefit to migrants’ families and/or the overall economies of migrants’ countries of origin.13
The potential impacts and objectives of international labor migration identified above are likely to be interrelated and potentially conflicting, which means that the relationship among them may be characterized by trade-offs. Trade-offs may exist when comparing the interests of the receiving country, migrants, and migrants’ countries of origin (e.g., the international migration of highly skilled workers from low-income countries may generate significant benefits for migrants and receiving countries, but have adverse impacts on migrants’ countries of origin); between the interests of different groups of people within countries (e.g., in the short term, immigration may benefit employers but harm some domestic workers in receiving countries); and between different types of impact (e.g., the level and kind of immigration that maximizes economic benefits may not be perceived to be compatible with considerations about national identity and social cohesion).
Defining and Pursuing the National Interest
Defining the national interest with regard to labor immigration policy may be conceptualized as a process of putting weights on the various interrelated impacts and objectives discussed above. How different objectives are prioritized and trade-offs managed is specific to time as well as place, historically contingent, and typically influenced by public opinion. For example, during an economic downturn, distributional considerations may play a greater role than during times of economic growth. After major security incidents involving migrants, national security and public order may become more prominent determinants of immigration policy.
Despite differences in the importance of the various policy objectives in different countries and within countries over time, the key argument underlying my analytic approach is that the four objectives of economic efficiency, distribution, national identity/social cohesion, and national security/public order are fundamental building blocks that constitute the national interest in labor immigration policymaking in all countries. These four objectives are, to borrow a term from Christina Boswell (2007, 75), “functional imperatives” of the state. To explore whether and how nation-states restrict the rights of migrant workers as part of their overall labor immigration policies, we therefore must examine the impacts of migrant rights and related migrant admission policies on these four objectives.
A crucial assumption of this approach to the analysis of migrant rights and immigration policy is that nation-states are and can be analyzed as actors with independent “agency”—that is, with the capability of designing and implementing policies that are aimed at achieving a set of national policy objectives. Although common in the international relations and broader political science literature on migration and the state, the premise that states are actors with at least some capability of pursuing independent policy can and has been contested, particularly within the political economy approach to theorizing immigration policy.14 In the political economy model by Gary Freeman (1995), for instance, immigration policies are the outcome of the relative powers of domestic interest groups such as employers, trade unions, and migrant community groups. The role of the nation-state is limited to that of a broker between different organized interests, without any place for national policy objectives. Freeman contends that migration creates benefits that are relatively concentrated (among employers and migrant groups), and costs that are much more diffuse across the economy and society. Consequently, employers have much greater incentives to organize and thus are much more effective in influencing policy than domestic workers. The result, according to Freeman (ibid., 886), is “client politics,” where immigration policy is captured by employers who lobby the government to expand rather than restrict immigration despite adverse (but diffuse) impacts on domestic low-skilled workers.
There is no doubt that employers and other interest groups can play a powerful role in determining as well as constraining nation-states’ immigration policies in practice. The argument that states are simply passively reacting to different interests and have no substantive policy objectives of their own is, however, difficult to defend in practice.15 The economic interests of employers may well be the driving force of immigration policy in certain countries at certain times, especially during economic growth where concerns about distribution and national identity may be less of a priority, but it evidently does not describe policymaking processes in all countries and at all times. In times of economic downturn, for example, states are likely to increase the importance of protecting low-skilled workers. Some countries’ immigration policies (e.g., in Australia, Canada, Japan, and Korea) are explicitly driven by noneconomic considerations such as a concern with maintaining a particular form of diversity or multiculturalism. It seems quite clear, then, that nation-states are purposeful actors whose labor immigration and other public policies are significantly influenced by national policy objectives.
Constraints and Variations in the Migration State
Nation-states are not unitary, rational, all-powerful actors that are completely free to design and implement policies in a way that maximizes a well-defined set of policy objectives.16 In practice, there can be a wide range of factors and institutions that limit nation-states’ capacity and formal authority to regulate immigration, and that mediate the ways in which the pursuit of certain objectives translates into actual policies. The three most important potential constraints and intervening factors relate to: nation-states’ capacity to control immigration and the employment of migrant workers; the “liberal constraint” on immigration policymaking; and the effects of key institutions including the prevailing political system, labor market structures, and welfare state systems. Just like policy objectives, these constraints and institutional factors vary across countries as well as over time. As a result, there can be significant variation in the policy space for the regulation of labor immigration within which governments operate in different countries and at different points in time.
The Capacity to Control Immigration
Nation-states’ capacity to control immigration and the employment of migrant workers is clearly incomplete. The presence of significant numbers of illegally resident migrants, who have either illegally entered the country or overstayed their legal residence permits, is at least to some extent a reflection of a limited state capacity to control the border and police migrants’ actions after entry. Comparative analyses of immigration policies in high-income countries have provided many examples of the large gaps between the stated aims of states’ migration policies and outcomes in practice.17 “Unintended consequences” is a common theme in the academic and policy literature on immigration policies around the world. There are many instances of migration policy failures, and few (and some would argue, no) best practices in immigration control.
States’ capacity to control immigration varies across countries. Geography, say, obviously matters. Being an island (e.g., Australia and the United Kingdom) or sharing a long land border with a lower-income country (e.g., the United States and Germany) are important determinants of the relative ease and financial costs of border control along with the pressures for illegal entries. The complexity and strength of the state bureaucracy is another critical factor that influences both how migration policy is made as well as the extent to which laws and policies are effectively implemented. As institutional analyses of the internal working of the migration state have pointed out, different government departments have varying responsibilities, interests, and capacities in the making and implementation of public policies.18 Policy decisions thus can be significantly influenced by negotiations, power struggles, and compromises made within the state bureaucracy. As a consequence, policies can sometimes be vague or internally contradictory, and there can be significant gaps between policy design and implementation. Depending on the institutional complexity and strength of the state bureaucracy, the capacity to rationally design and implement policies can be expected to be specific to country and time.
The porousness of international borders along with the gaps between policy aims and outcomes do not mean, however, that we are witnessing a general and continuous decline in nation-states’ capacity to regulate immigration, as some have argued.19 The policies of nation-states clearly continue to play a paramount role in influencing the scale and type of international labor migration, conditions under which it occurs, and rights of migrants after admission.20 Immigration restrictions imposed by nation-states are the primary reason why the share of migrants in the global population (an estimated 3 percent in 2010) is relatively low despite vast differences in average earnings in different countries.
It is also still true, as Gary Freeman (1998) suggested more than a decade ago, that it is hard to find systematic empirical evidence for the thesis of a declining state capacity to control immigration. It is plausible to make the opposite argument: the introduction of new technology has, at least in certain countries, increased states’ capacity to successfully implement external and internal immigration enforcement policies. Furthermore, it cannot simply be assumed that all the various unintended consequences of immigration control, and the gaps between migration policies and outcomes in practice, are due to the limited capacity of states to regulate immigration. In particular, what looks like a failure to control immigration due to a declining state capacity to control borders, such as the existence of a sizable population of illegally resident migrants, may in practice be the result of domestic politics of migration.21
It is also important to recognize that nation-states may have differential levels of control over different components of labor immigration policy. For example, although their control over regulating the admission of migrants may be limited in various different ways, nation-states have considerably greater capacity to define the legal rights of migrants.22 States use their legal frameworks and immigration policies to create different types of immigration status, including various types of temporary and permanent residence status. Most high-income countries are characterized by a multitude of different immigration statuses, each associated with different employment restrictions and economic and social rights.
The Liberal Constraint
The development of immigration and other public policies in liberal democratic nation-states can in practice be limited by two types of liberal constraint. The first stems from the protections provided by domestic liberal institutions, especially independent judiciaries and national constitutions.23 There are many examples where migration policies proposed by governments could not be implemented, or were eventually overturned, because independent lawmakers considered them to violate existing laws and rights protections.24 In 2008, for instance, the UK government attempted to tighten the rules that regulated the acquisition of permanent residence of highly skilled migrants, including a planned increase in the qualifying period for settlement from four to five years. The policies, which potentially affected about fifty thousand doctors, engineers, and other professionals, were overturned in 2009 because Britain’s high court declared them unfair and unlawful. Christian Joppke (1998) maintains that the legal process, specifically statutory and constitutional residence and family rights, was a key factor in explaining why European states continued to accept migrants even after they imposed recruitment stops of guest workers in the early 1970s.
There is no doubt that domestic liberal institutions can and do impose real constraints on the development and implementation of immigration policies. As with the capacity to control immigration, though, the degree to which domestic laws and institutions protect the rights of migrants against restrictive government policies is an empirical issue that varies across countries and over time. It is important to be precise about the differential protections provided for different kinds of rights (e.g., civil and political rights are typically more strongly protected than economic and social rights), and distinguish between rights that migrants are granted on arrival and the rights acquired over time. Many of the constraints and protections supplied by the domestic laws of liberal democracies relate to the rights of medium- to long-term migrants, rather than to migrants who have just recently arrived, and are residing and working on temporary permits. The implication is that states are typically less constrained in their ability to restrict some of the rights of newcomers, particularly their social rights.
A second and related type of liberal constraint stems from international commitments to supranational bodies and rights regimes. Some scholars suggest that these commitments severely restrict and diminish nation-states’ authority to regulate the admission as well as rights of migrants.25 While it is indisputable that membership in supranational institutions and global rights regimes exerts some limits on national immigration policymaking, these “international constraints” are in practice relatively limited and often only affect a subgroup of migrants. For example, while it is true that membership in the European Union removes nation-states’ formal control over the immigration and employment of migrants from other EU countries, EU member states are still in complete control over regulating the admission of migrants from outside the European Union. Progress with harmonizing immigration policy across the EU member states has been extremely limited and much slower than in other policy areas.26
At a global level, governance structures for regulating international migration are limited. There is no “World Migration Organization” that influences global migration in a way that is comparable to, say, the way in which the WTO regulates international trade. Efforts to use the WTO’s GATS Mode 4 agreement to regulate the international migration of highly skilled workers multilaterally have had limited success. It is telling that efforts to move toward more global governance of migration, such as through the discussions at the Global Forum on Migration and Development, are almost all focused on the effects of migration on sending countries as opposed to the impacts on and policies in the major receiving countries. Immigration clearly remains a public policy issue that most countries consider to be an inherently domestic matter.
A similar conclusion can be drawn about the impacts of international or supranational rights regimes. As discussed in chapter 2, with fewer than fifty ratifications, the CMW is the most underratified UN human rights treaty. In the European Union, which has its own legally binding human rights regime, the application of most EU laws and instruments is limited to the nationals of contracting states. The impacts of EU laws on the rights of non-EU nationals thus has been limited, especially with regard to social rights, which remain strongly linked to national citizenship.27 Virginie Guiraidon and Gallya Lahav’s (2000) analysis of the effects of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on national policymaking in European countries suggests a limited impact that has been focused on the right to family life and protection against inhumane treatment, which in practice primarily affects European countries’ expulsion policies. Guiraidon and Lahav find little evidence that the ECHR has played a role in expanding the social rights of foreigners.
Institutional Variations: Political Systems, Production Regimes, and Welfare States
Governments do not make labor immigration policy in an institutional vacuum. There are at least three institutional factors that can—at least in the short to medium term—constrain and give rise to considerable variation in the policy space for the regulation of labor immigration across countries and over time. These factors relate to differences in political systems and institutions, production regimes (including labor market policies), and welfare systems.
Whether or not a country is a liberal democracy has important implications for its labor immigration policy space and the prevailing politics of labor immigration policy. For example, the ruling elites of dictatorships are much less constrained by distributional considerations than liberal democracies where there is much greater pressure to implement redistributive policies.28 Within liberal democracies, political institutions can play a critical intervening role in determining how specific interests translate into political power and policies. Jeffrey Togman (2001), for instance, explores why the immigration policies of the United States and France reacted so differently to the world economic crisis of the 1970s, which led to considerable increases in unemployment in both countries. France significantly reduced labor immigration in response to the changed economic situation, while the United States continued to increase the admission of migrant workers. Togman shows how the statist-corporatist institutional framework enabled the French government to change immigration policy in response to rising unemployment, according to the perceived national interest. In contrast, in the United States, “pluralist institutions have negated the impact of economic factors on immigration laws, rendering policy outcomes highly unpredictable.”29
The prevailing production regime along with the associated labor market structure and policies constitute another important intervening factor that shapes the policy space for regulating the number, selection, and rights of migrant workers.30 The “varieties of capitalism” literature, which has in recent years become the most influential approach to the comparative analysis of economic performance and policy, makes a broad distinction between liberal and coordinated market economies based on whether the key spheres of production are coordinated by market or nonmarket mechanisms.31 In liberal market economies, immigration policy can become a tool of promoting the flexibility of the labor market by providing employers with highly mobile migrant workers who can help maintain relatively low-cost production systems. In contrast, in coordinated market economies there are likely to be strong pressures, partly through the involvement of unions in the design and implementation of labor immigration policies, to employ migrants at the collectively agreed-on wage. As a result, governments of coordinated market economies can be expected to find it much more difficult, for example, to encourage labor immigration as a way of moderating wage growth and inflation compared to the governments of liberal market economies.
Welfare state policies are a third determinant of the policy space for regulating labor immigration, especially but not exclusively through impacting on the social rights of migrant workers. Gøsta Esping-Anderson’s (1990) seminal typology and discussion of welfare regimes distinguishes between liberal, conservative, and social democratic welfare states. The type of welfare regime, which is in many ways interrelated with the prevailing production regime, shapes the space for developing labor immigration policy in two ways.32 First, it affects the fiscal costs of immigration. Including migrants in the welfare state of social democratic countries, which are based on the principles of universalism and equality of standards, can create more costs than under liberal welfare states with a minimum of social rights. Second, it may influence the extent to which immigration is perceived as a threat to the welfare state, and consequently, the degree to which it is possible to exclude migrants from selected social rights. Restricting migrants’ access to some social rights, for example, may be regarded as unproblematic in liberal and even conservative regimes, but it may be perceived as a threat to maintaining social democratic welfare states that are based on principles of universality and inclusion.
In the short run, we can expect the prevailing production regime and welfare system to constitute relatively strong and binding constraints on the policy space for the regulation of labor immigration. Any short-term changes to labor immigration policy are thus likely to be characterized by “path dependencies”—that is, by incremental changes that are strongly influenced by past policies and prevailing institutions of the labor market and welfare state. This expectation is in line with the varieties of capitalism approach, which suggests that effective public policies need to be “incentive compatible”—namely, they need to be in line with and complement the mode of coordination inherent to the prevailing institutional structures.33 In the medium to long run, though, the institutional framework, and therefore the policy space for regulating labor immigration, may change.34 For instance, governments can deregulate labor markets, change welfare state policies, make the political system more (or less) democratic, and so on. Immigration itself may contribute to changes in institutions—say, through changes in trade unions’ membership rates. In other words, although binding in the short run, institutional constraints are not a fixed straitjacket for labor immigration policymaking.35 States, firms, and other actors can bring about institutional change that results in new labor immigration policy options becoming available, and/or old ones disappearing from the prevailing policy space.
Three Hypotheses
Based on the model of labor immigration policy outlined above, the remainder of this chapter draws on the existing literature on the effects of labor migration to explore, from a theoretical perspective, the likely interrelationships between nation-states’ policies for regulating the admission (openness and skills) and rights of migrant workers. I propose and discuss three hypotheses about labor immigration programs in high-income countries:36
1. labor immigration programs that target higher-skilled migrants are more open to labor immigration than those targeting lower-skilled migrants
2. programs that target higher-skilled migrants grant migrants more rights than programs that target lower-skilled migrants
3. there can be a trade-off (a negative relationship) between openness and some of the rights of some migrant workers admitted to high-income countries—that is, greater openness to admitting migrant workers will be associated with relatively fewer rights for migrants and vice versa
I argue that these relationships—which are interrelated—are fundamental and can be expected to apply to labor immigration policies in most high-income countries, including countries with different policy spaces (i.e., with different constraints and institutional characteristics) for the regulation of labor immigration. Institutions such as the prevailing political system, welfare state, and production system (including labor market regulations) can be expected to affect the degree or strength of the three relationships in different countries as well as at particular points in time—but not the existence of the relationships themselves. As discussed above, the primary impact of institutional differences is to limit—at least in the short run—the policy choices available to policymakers in different countries at different times.
Hypothesis 1: Positive Relationship between Openness and Targeted Skills
Labor immigration programs in high-income countries can be expected to be characterized by a positive relationship between openness to admitting migrants and the targeted skill level of the migrant workers—in other words, labor immigration programs that target higher-skilled migrants are more open (i.e., impose fewer restrictions) to labor immigration than those targeting lower-skilled migrants. Within the model of labor immigration policy developed in this book, there are five reasons for expecting this relationship. The first three are based on economic considerations and effects that relate to the objectives of economic efficiency and distribution, or more specifically, to the goals of maximizing the overall net benefits from immigration and minimizing adverse impacts on the lowest paid among the existing population.37
For one, research suggests that skilled migrants can be expected to generate greater complementarities with the skills and capital of the existing population. George Borjas (1995), for instance, contends that in the United States, the wages of skilled workers are more responsive to supply shifts than the wages of low-skilled workers, partly because skilled workers are more highly complementary to capital than low-skilled workers. Consequently, the United States would maximize the net gains from immigration by admitting skilled rather than low-skilled workers. Such a policy would also reduce inequality among workers and ensure that the incomes of the lowest paid are not adversely affected. Boeri and Brücker (2005) make a similar argument for increasing the skill content of migration to the European Union.38
The economic case for admission policies that favor skilled over low-skilled migrants is further supported by economic models that explore the long-term growth and spillover effects of immigration. Various endogenous growth models emphasize the importance of human capital, knowledge, and research and development for long-term economic growth.39 In a recent model developed by Stephen Drinkwater and colleagues (2007), skilled immigration increases the incentives to engage in more skill-intensive research and development activity, thereby increasing long-term growth. A recent study in the United States has shown that skilled migrant entrepreneurs have made a major contribution to the creation of engineering and technology businesses as well as intellectual property in the United States.40
The fiscal effects of immigration can provide a third reason for high-income countries to be more open to skilled rather than low-skilled migrants. The net fiscal impact of immigration—the difference between the taxes that migrants pay and the costs of public services and benefits that migrants consume—largely depend on migrants’ age, earnings, and eligibility for along with take-up of government benefits and services; the nature of the welfare system, especially the extent to which it redistributes income from high-to low-income earners; and how immigration affects nonmigrants’ contribution to and use of the welfare state, such as through positive or negative impacts on the employment rates of nonmigrants. Everything else being equal, skilled migrants employed in high-paid jobs can be expected to pay more taxes and be eligible for fewer welfare benefits than low-skilled migrants in low-paid jobs.41 Alan Barrett and Yvonne McCarthy’s (2008) finding that education is inversely related to welfare receipt among people in Ireland and the United Kingdom supports this assertion. Although the fiscal effects of immigration are highly country specific, empirical research indicates that the net fiscal effects of low-skilled migrants are often negative.42
Taken together, these three effects provide an economic rationale for high-income countries to be more open to admitting skilled rather than low-skilled migrant workers. This does not mean that there is no economic case or incentive to admit low-skilled migrants. There clearly can be cases where the employment of low-skilled migrant workers in specific sectors suffering from labor shortages that cannot be met through other means may generate economic benefits for existing residents, such as through lower prices of commodities and services whose production/provision makes intensive use of low-waged migrant workers. A common key argument against low-skilled labor immigration is the adverse impacts—at least in the short run—on low-skilled domestic workers competing with migrants for jobs. If labor markets are highly or even completely segmented—that is, most domestic workers do not compete for certain jobs—some of these distribution concerns about low-skilled labor immigration will play a smaller role.
While the general preference for admitting skilled over low-skilled migrant workers is likely to hold for most high-income countries, institutional differences can be expected to lead to differences in the degree or strength of this preference.43 For example, countries with liberal market economies and flexible labor markets can be expected to create more lower-paid jobs, and thus may have a relatively greater demand for migrant workers in these jobs than economies with coordinated market economies and more regulated labor markets. Similarly, the magnitude of the difference between the net fiscal contributions of low- and high-skilled migrants will depend on the nature of the welfare state. Countries with large and inclusive welfare states that generate significant redistribution from high- to low-income earners, for instance, can have greater fiscal incentives to accept skilled over low-skilled migrants than countries with smaller welfare states that lead to less income redistribution.
In addition to economic considerations, high-income countries’ preference for skilled over low-skilled migrant workers also may be driven by concerns about the impacts of immigration on crime. There is significant evidence that important determinants of crime are education, relative wages, and income inequality. For example, Paolo Buonanno and Daniel Montolio (2008) find that education has a large and significantly negative effect on property crime in Spain; the more educated people are, the less likely they are to engage in criminal activities. A second and related key finding that is fairly consistent across empirical studies in different countries is that crime is significantly linked to low-wage labor markets. Relative falls in the wages of low-wage earners and the resulting greater income inequality have been shown to increase property crimes.44 These findings suggest that the immigration of low-skilled migrant workers, which is likely to increase inequality by lowering the relative wages of low-skilled domestic workers, can be expected to have a worse effect on crime than the immigration of skilled migrants.
The skills of migrants can also be expected to shape the impacts of immigration on national identity and social cohesion as measured, for one, by “social capital.” It is well established in the literature on social cohesion that education has positive impacts on key dimensions of social capital such as involvement in community affairs.45 Socioeconomic class and socioeconomic inequalities have also been found to be critical determinants; poverty, low socioeconomic status, and income inequality all erode trust among people.46 Paola Grenier and Karen Wright (2006, 50) thus emphasize the importance of policies that “seek to minimise the social divisions of class and income that undermine the potential for the ‘overlapping networks of relative equality’ and general social trust that form the core of social capital.”
As Fiona Adamson (2006) points out, the mobilization of skilled and highly skilled migrants can enhance a nation-state’s ability to project power and influence in the international arena. For some countries, this may provide another reason for focusing their admission policies on attracting skilled rather than low-skilled migrants.
Hypothesis 2: Positive Relationship between Some Migrant Rights and Targeted Skills
A second, related hypothesis is that a positive correlation exists between some of the rights and targeted skills of migrant workers admitted under labor immigration programs in high-income countries. In other words, we can expect programs that target more highly skilled workers to be associated with more rights for migrant workers than those targeting lower-skilled workers and vice versa.
Before discussing the reasons for this hypothesis, it is crucial to reemphasize that there are significant constraints on the scope and policy space for restricting the rights of migrant worker in liberal democracies. In most liberal democratic countries, migrants with permanent residence status are typically granted almost all the rights of citizens, with the important exception of the right to vote in national elections. Restrictions of migrant rights require temporary rather than permanent immigration programs. The decision concerning whether the admission of migrants (or particular groups of migrants) should be permanent or time limited therefore is a fundamental policy issue that directly affects whether and whose rights can be restricted.
When deciding on whether and how to restrict the rights of migrant workers, receiving countries must take into account the impact on the potential migrant labor supply. Highly skilled migrants are relatively scarce in the global economy. A significant number of high-income countries are competing for a relatively small pool of highly qualified workers willing to migrate. As a result, qualified migrants are able to choose among competing destinations, and their choice of destination is likely to depend on both expected earnings and expected rights in destination areas. In order to attract highly skilled workers, countries need to offer not only high wages but also substantial rights. Given the international competition for highly skilled migrant workers, we can expect a “race to the top” where high-income countries must offer internationally competitive packages in terms of wages and rights.47
In contrast, there is an almost-unlimited supply of potential migrants in low-income countries willing to accept low-skilled jobs in higher-income countries with wages, employment conditions, and rights that are significantly lower than those mandated by local laws and international norms. Migrants may not demand equal treatment in the labor markets of higher-income countries, especially if they are recently arrived, plan a limited and relatively short spell of employment abroad, and/or consider the wages and employment conditions in the labor markets in their countries of origin as their primary frame of reference.48 The “excess” supply of low-skilled migrant labor means that it is possible to increase the admission and employment of low-skilled migrants while at the same time reducing their wages and rights. This out-of-equilibrium situation will remain as long as national borders prevent the free flow of international labor migrants seeking low-skilled work.
Why should we expect high-income countries to restrict the rights of low- and medium-skilled migrant workers, and what are the reasons for expecting restrictions to increase as the targeted skill level of the labor immigration program declines? The obvious—but nevertheless rarely discussed—answer is that all rights, including those of migrant workers, cost money. As Stephen Holmes and Cass Sunstein (1999) persuasively argue, rights cannot be protected or enforced without public funding. The costs of rights vary across different types of rights and are likely to be context specific. In most liberal democracies, for example, the average cost of protecting one (more) person’s right to free speech can be expected to be lower than the average cost of providing one (more) person with free health care. It is also important to add that rights can create costs as well as benefits (economic, social, cultural, and others), which can differ between the short, medium, and long run. The short-run costs of supplying some rights, such as the right to free education for children, may be outweighed by longer-term benefits, such as greater taxes because of a more highly educated labor force that earns higher wages. High-income countries’ willingness to pay for specific rights can be expected to vary over the business cycle. As Holmes and Sunstein (ibid., 94) contend, “Rights will regularly be curtailed when available resources dry up, just as they will become susceptible to expansion whenever resources expand.”
If, as argued in this chapter, migrant rights are instruments and the result of a policy choice, it is plausible to expect high-income countries to selectively and strategically restrict some of the rights of migrants in a way that maximizes the net benefits for the receiving country.49 The cost of some rights (e.g., some social rights) is inversely related to the skill level (and thus earnings) of the migrant. For instance, as mentioned above, all else being equal low-skilled workers in low-skilled jobs can be expected to make smaller tax contributions and greater demands on the welfare state than higher-skilled workers in higher-paying jobs. This is why some—but not all—of the rights granted to migrants under labor immigration programs can be expected to critically depend on their skills.
The discussion below looks at some of the likely costs and benefits of granting (or restricting) different types of rights for migrant workers, and the implications for whether and how high-income countries can be expected to restrict these rights for migrants with different skills. I focus on economic rights, social rights, and the rights to settlement and family reunion.
It is important to underscore at this point that in contrast to most civil and political rights, there is considerable variation in the economic and social rights of citizens across countries as well as within countries over time. Differences in labor market structures and welfare states mean, for example, that British citizens enjoy different rights in the labor market and welfare state than citizens of Sweden. Crucially, nation-states frequently redefine and/or reduce access to specific economic and social rights for citizens, not just migrants. The substance and scope of social rights in particular can vary significantly over time, often in response to cost pressures. Economic downturns, for one, can accelerate long-term trends of welfare state retrenchment that some social policy scholars have identified. Downsizing the welfare state involves a tightening of the eligibility rules (i.e., a reduction in the number of people eligible for, say, unemployment benefits or income support) and/or a reduction in the level of benefits conferred by particular rights (e.g., a reduction in the amount of unemployment benefits). Although reductions in social rights for citizens are obviously unpopular with the electorate, they are not uncommon.
Economic Rights
To facilitate a level playing field in the labor market and avoid adverse impacts on resident workers, we can expect high-income countries to grant migrant workers most of the economic rights granted to citizens including the right to equal wages and working conditions. The reason is that some employment-related rights can create costs for employers. Therefore, all else being equal, migrant workers who can be employed under restricted rights will be preferred by employers to resident workers with full employment rights. In the extreme case, the employment of different groups of workers that can be offered different wages and/or employment conditions for the same work could lead to a complete segmentation of the labor market. To avoid such developments requires equality, or near equality, in pay and other work-related rights.
Institutional differences matter in this case, at least in the short run. The assertion that equal rights are required to protect local workers from unfair competition may not apply in countries where parts of the labor market have become completely segmented and dominated entirely by migrant workers. As discussed in chapter 5, labor markets in many of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in the Persian Gulf are a good illustration.
The major exception to the expectation that most high-income countries will grant migrants equal labor rights relates to the right to free choice of employment. As explained in the discussion of the first hypothesis, an important rationale for admitting migrant workers, especially at the lower end of the skills spectrum, is to fill vacancies in specific sectors and/or occupations that are deemed to be experiencing a shortage of domestic workers rather than to admit workers who are free to take up any job, including in those sectors that are not suffering from shortages. Restricting migrants to specific sectors and/or occupations requires a restriction of the right to free choice of employment. Concerned about avoiding adverse distributional consequences of immigration, high-income countries can be expected to restrict this right for most low- and medium-skilled migrant workers, and potentially also some skilled workers, but not for the most highly skilled, whose choice of destination country may be influenced by whether or not their employment is in any way restricted.
Social Rights
To maximize the fiscal net contribution of migrants, high-income countries can be expected to restrict some migrants’ access to some public services and welfare benefits. As the usage and receipt of welfare benefits is likely to be inversely related to migrants’ skill level and earnings, there is an economic case for selectively restricting some of the lower-skilled migrants’ access to equal social rights such as public housing and other income-based welfare benefits (e.g., low-income support). The lower the skills and earnings of migrants in the host country, the greater will be the strictly economic case for restricting some of their welfare rights in order to minimize the fiscal costs for existing residents. These restrictions need to be selective and limited, since the denial of the most basic social rights—such as the rights to emergency and other basic health care—could create more costs than benefits for the existing population. For example, migrants without any health care benefits may not use medical services if they are carrying infectious diseases. Migrants without any welfare benefits may also feel compelled to work at below-standard wages to survive.
Rights to Settlement and Family Reunion
Given that most restrictions of migrant rights are only feasible under TMPs, we can expect most high-income countries to regulate labor immigration through policies that grant migrant workers temporary rather than permanent residence status on arrival. Programs that target the most highly skilled workers, who will prefer and thus may choose countries that offer permanent as opposed to temporary status, are again likely to be an important exception.
A key question in the design of a TMP in high-income countries is whether migrants are expected to leave the country after their work permits expire or if there should be a mechanism that enables them to acquire permanent residence rights that may eventually lead to citizenship status. From an economic point of view, the argument for strictly temporary migration (i.e., without the possibility for upgrading to permanent residence) primarily stems from the possibility of restricting migrants’ rights under a TMP. Once migrants acquire permanent residence, these restrictions would need to be lifted. This could lower the net benefit of immigration for residents by, for instance, increasing the number of migrants accessing public services and welfare benefits and competing for jobs in sectors and/or occupations where there is a sufficient supply of resident workers. Temporary residence status that is dependent on having a job in the host country also may benefit the host country in terms of flexibility over the business cycle. For example, during an economic downturn with significant job losses, it is likely in the receiving country’s interest for unemployed low- and medium-skilled migrants to leave the country rather than remain resident on unemployment benefits, as could be the case if migrants had permanent residence status. Temporary residence status, in other words, gives receiving countries an element of flexibility that is lost when migrants acquire permanent residence status.
The right to family reunion also can be expected to critically depend on the skill level of the migrant. Denying high-skilled migrants the right to family reunion is likely to have significant adverse effects on a country’s attractiveness. We therefore can expect that most high-income countries will grant highly skilled migrants this right. In contrast, assuming that spouses and families of low-skilled migrants are in a similar socioeconomic group as the primary applicant, family reunion for low- and medium-skilled migrants may result in increased costs arising from further pressures on access to, say, the welfare state and low-wage sectors of the domestic labor market.
Institutional differences will impact on the policy choices available. For example, countries that are not liberal democracies will find it easier than liberal democratic countries to restrict the right to settlement and family reunion. Welfare states and social models that place a high value on inclusiveness and try to avoid creating a group of second-class citizens with fewer rights than full citizens, as has been the case in Sweden, may find it more difficult to restrict rights to settlement and family reunion compared to countries with different welfare states and social models.
Hypothesis 3: Negative Relationship between Openness and Some Migrant Rights
The third hypothesis suggests that there can be a trade-off (a negative relationship) between openness and some of the rights of some migrant workers admitted to high-income countries—that is, greater openness to admitting migrant workers will be associated with relatively fewer rights for migrants and vice versa. The basis for this hypothesis is closely related to the first two: if certain rights for some migrants create net costs for the receiving country, policy openness to admitting such migrants can be expected to critically depend on the extent to which some of their rights can be restricted.
This trade-off will likely affect some social rights. In order to minimize the fiscal costs of low-skilled migrants for existing residents, high-income countries can be expected to admit either relatively low numbers of low-skilled migrants with full or close-to-full social rights, or larger numbers with more restricted rights. As discussed earlier in this chapter, although the fiscal effects of immigration are necessarily context specific, granting low-skilled and low-waged migrant workers equal access to social rights can create net costs for the receiving country, especially in countries with large welfare states. Restricting low-skilled migrants’ rights to welfare benefits and public services removes some (but not all) of the arguments for selecting skilled rather than low-skilled migrants in high-income countries.
There is some evidence from existing research that supports the hypothesis of a trade-off between openness and access to some social rights. For instance, contending that “states that provide immigrants with far-ranging rights may have greater incentives to reduce immigration levels,” Brian Gran and Elizabeth Clifford (2000) empirically test this hypothesis by exploring the relationship between immigration and access to social welfare programs in nine Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during 1960–85. They focus on two specific groups of migrants: “young” migrants (nine years or younger), and “old” migrants (fifty years or older). These two groups were chosen because of their perceived economic vulnerability and greater likelihood of receiving social welfare benefits than other age groups. The scholars’ empirical analysis finds a trade-off between immigration and social rights for the old but not for the young migrants. Gran and Clifford (ibid., 440) conclude that “the costs associated with less restrictive eligibility conditions to social welfare programmes magnify the pressures and incentives to limit and reduce the entry of older immigrants.”
Nikola Mirilovic (2010) makes a similar argument in his analysis of the effects of being a democracy or dictatorship (“regime type”) on migration flows and stocks in over 150 countries during 1980 and 2000. He finds that being a rich dictatorship has statistically significant and positive impacts on net-migration flows along with the share of migrants in the population. Mirilovic maintains that one of the key reasons why dictatorships find it easier to admit more migrant workers than democracies is that dictatorships find it easier to deny migrants access to the welfare state. So this is another illustration of how institutions—in this case, the prevailing political system—matter in determining the available policy choices as well as the strength of the relationship between openness and rights.
The right to free choice of employment is another right that can be expected to be restricted as part of a policy trade-off between openness and rights. As mentioned above, to minimize adverse distributional consequences for domestic workers, especially but perhaps not only in low- and medium-wage jobs, high-income countries have an interest in limiting the immigration and employment of migrant workers to specific sectors and/or occupations that are deemed to be suffering from domestic labor shortages. Admitting migrants without any employment restrictions would increase competition with—and hence put pressure on the wages and employment prospects of—domestic workers in jobs that are not suffering from labor shortages. Consequently, high-income countries can be expected to admit most migrant workers (highly skilled migrants are again the likely exception) only if their right to free choice of employment can be restricted, at least temporarily. Since migrants on permanent residence permits are typically given all the economic rights of citizens, this restriction requires a TMP. Countries that, for whatever reason, cannot or will not operate TMPs with restricted employment rights for low-skilled migrants can be expected to admit significantly fewer low-skilled migrant workers than those that do.
The suggested trade-off between openness and restrictions on some social rights as well as the right to free choice of employment is based on the likely effects of immigration on residents in high-income countries. It is, however, also reflected in public opinion toward immigration. Research evidence on the determinants of attitudes toward immigration suggests that social and other rights for migrants can reduce public support for more open admission policies, especially among skilled (and well-paid) residents whose taxes would contribute to covering most of the costs of providing public services and benefits for low-skilled migrants.50 Jim Dolmas and Gregory Huffman (2004, 1155) claim that “apparent opposition to immigration may in fact not be disapproval of immigration per se, but instead might be opposition to the benefits that immigrants will subsequently receive after having emigrated.” Gordon Hanson (2005, 1) thus argues for the United States that “generating greater political support for open immigration policies would require reducing immigration’s adverse effects on the labor market-earnings and fiscal burdens on US residents.” As one of the policy options, Hanson (ibid., 2) proposes that the country “expand temporary migration programs and phase in immigrant access to public benefits more slowly over time.”
The political economy considerations noted above—based on nation-states’ concerns about fiscal impacts and, to some extent, also the labor market effects of immigration—are likely to be a key driver of the expected openness-rights trade-offs in high-income countries’ labor immigration policies.
It is important to clarify and reemphasize at this point that my discussion of openness refers to “policy openness,” defined as the number, scope and strength of restrictions that nation-states put in place to regulate the inflow of migrant workers—something that is not necessarily the same as the actual scale of migration to a particular country. For example, in labor immigration programs that aim to attract high-skilled migrants, high degrees of policy openness will not always result in a corresponding high number of inflows of highly skilled workers. Given the global competition for highly skilled workers, there can be many reasons (e.g., culture, language, climate, geographic location, etc.) that can discourage highly skilled workers from moving to specific countries despite legal possibilities to do so. In contrast, given the almost-unlimited supply of low- and medium-skilled workers willing to move and take up employment at higher wages abroad, high-income countries that are willing to open their borders and labor markets to low-skilled workers from abroad are likely to be able to attract as many workers as intended by policy.
Although the focus of my analysis is on policy openness along with the potential costs and benefits of rights for the national interest of the state, it is important to add that certain rights can also create costs for—and hence affect the recruitment decisions of—employers. Just like the fiscal effects of immigration create incentives for states to implement policies that involve a trade-off between openness and some social rights of low-skilled migrant workers, the costs of certain employment rights may generate incentives for employers that result in a trade-off between rights and the number of workers recruited.
Employers face a downward-sloping demand curve for labor, meaning that ceteris paribus, higher labor costs will be associated with fewer workers employed. Certain employment rights for workers—such as the right to a minimum wage, work-related benefits, and health and safety standards—increase labor costs for employers, thereby generating a trade-off between numbers and rights. In other words, employers’ demand curve for labor is downward sloping with regard to certain rights. The trade-off between the rights and number of employed workers is familiar, as when employers oppose minimum wage increases because they assert that higher labor costs will mean fewer jobs. The analogy to migrants’ rights is clear: if migrants have all the economic and social rights laid out in ILO and UN conventions, including the right to equal wages and all work-related benefits, their cost to employers will be higher and fewer people will be employed. On the other hand, more limited migrant rights may mean lower costs for employers and more migrants employed. In this sense, increasing the rights of migrants can affect their employment in the same way that a higher minimum wage can reduce the number of jobs (for all workers, not just migrants). Of course, it needs to be added that not all rights create significant costs for employers. It is nevertheless clear that some rights do create costs and that significant increases in labor costs will, ceteris paribus, encourage profit-maximizing employers to reduce the number of jobs on offer.
To avoid unintended confusion, it is worth reemphasizing that by suggesting the theoretical possibility of a trade-off between the openness and some of the rights of migrant workers admitted to high-income countries, I am not arguing or assuming that it is normatively desirable to restrict migrant rights (an issue that I examine in chapter 7). I am asserting that there are economic effects and mechanisms that potentially lead to an inverse relationship in high-income countries’ policies between openness to admitting migrant workers and some of the rights granted to migrants after admission.
Trade-offs are, of course, ubiquitous in life, and preoccupy large parts of social science and public policy analysis. For example, the social policy literature concerned with welfare state retrenchment has highlighted “cost containment” as a key dimension.51 Social policy debates have explored the various modes of fiscal retrenchment, which typically involves a tightening of eligibility rules (i.e., a reduction in access) and/or a reduction in benefits (i.e., a lower level of entitlements including social rights). Note that these trade-offs are about policy choices that affect all residents (including citizens), not only migrants.
To summarize, this chapter has provided a basic theoretical framework and testable hypotheses for an analysis of how nation-states regulate the admission as well as rights of migrant workers. The regulation of labor immigration can be described as a matter of choice under constraint. Nation-states decide how to regulate the number, selection, and rights of migrant workers admitted in order to achieve a common set of potential objectives—economic efficiency, distribution, social cohesion and national identity, and national security and public order—given a common set of potential constraints and institutional factors that limit and mediate the ways in which the pursuit of policy objectives translates into actual policies. These constraints and institutional factors stem from nation-states’ incomplete capacity to control immigration; domestic liberal institutions and international rights regimes; and the prevailing national political system, production regime (including labor market policies), and welfare system. Taken together, these constraints and institutions define as well as circumscribe the policy space for the regulation of labor immigration in particular countries. The relative significance assigned to each of the policy objectives, the ways in which competing goals are managed, and the strength and impacts of the constraints and institutional factors are all highly specific to country and time. Variation in objectives and constraints leads to different national policy spaces and labor immigration policy regimes that vary both across countries and over time.
Based on this conceptual approach, and drawing from theories and research on the effects of labor immigration, the chapter has identified three basic hypotheses about the relationship between high-income countries’ policies for regulating the openness, skill requirements, and rights of migrant workers. These hypotheses suggest that programs designed to admit and employ higher-skilled migrants are more open and grant more rights than do programs targeting lower-skilled migrants, and that labor immigration policies can be characterized by a trade-off (i.e., an inverse relationship) between openness and some rights for specific skill groups of migrants (i.e., programs that are more open to admitting migrant workers also impose greater restrictions on specific migrant rights). Institutional variations can be expected to affect the strength but not the existence of these relationships in different countries and at particular points in time.
Whether these relationships can be observed and applied in practice, and what drives them, are important empirical questions that are explored in the next three chapters.
1 See, for example, Borjas 1995.
2 See Ruhs and Anderson 2010b; Martin and Ruhs 2011.
3 See, for example, Romer 1986; Lucas 1988.
4 Rowthorn 2008.
5 See Dustmann, Glitz, and Frattini 2008.
6 Jupp, Nieuwenhuysen, and Dawson 2007, 2.
7 See Goodhart 2004.
8 See, for example, Putnam 2007.
9 See, for example, Transatlantic Trends 2010.
10 See the discussion in Adamson 2006.
11 Mirilovic 2010.
12 Adamson 2006.
13 See, for example, UNDP 2009.
14 See, for example, Zolberg 1999; Weiner 1995; Hollifield 2000.
15 See also Boswell 2007.
16 The term migration state was originally coined in Hollifield 2004.
17 Cornelius et al. 2004; see also Castles 2004.
18 See, for example, Calavita 1992.
19 See, for example, Sassen 1999.
20 See also Zolberg 1999.
21 Freeman 1998; Joppke 1998.
22 Cornelius and Rosenblum 2005.
23 See, for example, Hollifield 2000.
24 See, for example, Hollified, Hunt, and Tichenor 2008.
25 See, for example, Sassen 1999; Soysal 1994; Jacobsen 1996.
26 See Givens and Luedtke 2004.
27 Dell’Olio 2002.
28 Mirilovic 2010.
29 Togman 2001, 19.
30 See, for example, Borang 2007; Devitt 2010.
31 See, for example, Hall and Soskice 2001.
32 Ibid.; Schroder 2009.
33 Hall and Soskice 2001.
34 Hall and Thelen 2009.
35 See also Bucken-Knapp 2009.
36 Parts of the analysis in the remainder of this chapter build on Ruhs 2010a; Ruhs and Martin 2008.
37 Compare to Borjas 1999, which discusses these issues in the context of US immigration policy.
38 The assessment that skilled migrants will generate greater complementarities with the skills and capital of the existing population in high-income countries can be expected to be relevant for most high-income countries, but an important caveat must be added. Since the economic impact of immigration critically depends on the skills of residents and the characteristics of the host economy, the optimal skill mix of immigrants is always highly specific to the country and time (Dustmann, Glitz, and Frattini 2008). It therefore must be assessed through empirical analysis that critically interrogates the key assumptions made in generalized economic models in the context of the specific economy and time under consideration.
39 See, for example, Romer 1986; Lucas 1988.
40 Wadhwa et al. 2008; see also Saxenian 1999.
41 As my wording suggests, this argument assumes that high-skilled migrants do high-skilled work. Skilled migrants who fail to get jobs or work in low-paid jobs that do not correspond to their skills may have a negative net impact on public finance.
42 See the review in Rowthorn 2008.
43 See the discussion in Devitt 2010.
44 See, for example, Freeman 1999; Machin and Meghir 2004.
45 Hall 1999.
46 Letki 2008; Putnam 2007.
47 Shachar 2006.
48 Piore 1979.
49 See also Cox and Posner 2009.
50 Hanson, Scheve, and Slaughter 2007.
51 See, for example, Pierson 2001.