Legal Statuses, Settled Migrants, and Labour Market Prospects

This research project investigates the labour market integration of settled migrants and naturalised citizens in the UK and sets this experience in a comparative European frame. By grasping the whole range of different positions and experiences of migrant workers and how these relate and interact with the employment world, the project aims to theorise on the modality of law and the market and their capacity to operate as vectors determining working life prospects and life chances.

Its objectives are: to unpack the multiplicity of migration statuses in the whole range from undocumented to naturalised citizen as they exist in different national jurisdictions; to understand the long-term effects of migration law restrictions in their intersection with labour law norms and labour market institutions; to identify what citizenship means for labour market integration in the case of naturalised citizens and what non-citizenship means for the rest; and to unravel the implications of Brexit for settled migrants’ labour market integration.