Joakim Palme

Martin Ruhs

Kristof Tamas

What is the use of research in public debates and policy-making on immigration and integration? Why are there such large gaps between migration debates and migration realities, and how can they be reduced? Bridging the Gaps: Linking Research to Public Debates and Policy Making on Migration and Integration provides a unique set of testimonies and analyses of these questions by researchers and policy experts who have been deeply involved in attempts to link social science research to public policies. Bridging the Gaps argues that we must go beyond the prevailing focus on the research-policy nexus by considering how the media, public opinion, and other dimensions of public debates can interact with research and policy-processes. The chapters provide theoretical analyses and personal assessments of the successes and failures of past efforts to link research to public debates and policy-making on migration and integration in six different countries - Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States - as well as in European and global governance debates. Contrary to common public perceptions and political demands, Bridging the Gaps argues that all actors contributing to research, public debates, and policy-making should recognize that migration, integration, and related decision-making are highly complex issues, and that there are no quick fixes to what are often enduring policy dilemmas. When the different actors understand and appreciate each other's primary aims and constraints, such common understandings can pave the way for improved policy-making processes and better public policies that deal more effectively with the real challenges of migration and integration.

Linking Research to Public Debates and Policy Making on Migration and Integration

Bridging the Gaps

Bridget Anderson

Are migrant workers needed to 'do the jobs that locals will not do' or are they simply a more exploitable labour force? Do they have a better 'work ethic' or are they less able to complain? Is migrant labour the solution to 'skills shortages' or actually part of the problem? This book provides a comprehensive framework for analysing the demand for migrant workers in high-income countries. It demonstrates how a wide range of government policies, often unrelated to migration, contribute to creating a growing demand for migrant labour. This demand can persist even during economic downturns. The book includes quantitative and qualitative analyses of the changing role of migrants in the UK economy. The empirical chapters include in-depth examinations of the nature of staff shortages and the use of migrant workers in six sectors: health; social care; hospitality; food production; construction; and financial services. The book' s conceptual framework and empirical findings are of importance to academic and policy debates about labour immigration in all high-income countries. The final chapter presents a comparative analysis of research and policy approaches to assessing labour shortages in the UK and the US. It examines the potential lessons of the UK's Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) for current debates about labour shortages and immigration reform in the US. The book will be of significant interest to policy-makers, stakeholders, academics and students.

Labour shortages, immigration, and public policy

Who Needs Migrant Workers?

Many low-income countries and development organizations are calling for greater liberalization of labor immigration policies in high-income countries. At the same time, human rights organizations and migrant rights advocates demand more equal rights for migrant workers. The Price of Rights shows why you cannot always have both. Examining labor immigration policies in over forty countries, as well as policy drivers in major migrant-receiving and migrant-sending states, Martin Ruhs finds that there are trade-offs in the policies of high-income countries between openness to admitting migrant workers and some of the rights granted to migrants after admission. Insisting on greater equality of rights for migrant workers can come at the price of more restrictive admission policies, especially for lower-skilled workers. Ruhs advocates the liberalization of international labor migration through temporary migration programs that protect a universal set of core rights and account for the interests of nation-states by restricting a few specific rights that create net costs for receiving countries. The Price of Rights analyzes how high-income countries restrict the rights of migrant workers as part of their labor immigration policies and discusses the implications for global debates about regulating labor migration and protecting migrants. It comprehensively looks at the tensions between human rights and citizenship rights, the agency and interests of migrants and states, and the determinants and ethics of labor immigration policy.

Martin Ruhs

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