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The impact of restrictions and entitlements on the integration of family migrants
Ignacio Urquijo
19 October 2015
For a person residing abroad, the reunion with the family members (spouses, partners, children, parents…) might be one of the best news she/he could receive. However, it is possible that this does not work the other way around, due to the difficulties that family members have to experience in the new country. This is aggravated, according to the results of the project IMPACIM, by the lack of specific integration policies, which is creating several disadvantages for the spouses, children and other relatives of citizens or not citizens residing in a third country.
IMPACIM (The Impact of Restrictions and Entitlements on the Integration of Family Migrants) has also noticed there is a lack of research-based knowledge about the experiences of family members. To contribute to the improvement of the situation, the project studied the “impact of admission criteria that impose restrictive conditions of stay (in particular those relating to jobs, public services, welfare benefits and voting) on the integration of third country national family migrants moving to EU Member States”.
Four research teams, based in Germany (University of Bamberg), the Netherlands (Erasmus University of Rotterdam), Spain (Complutense University of Madrid) and the United Kingdom (Centre on Migration, Policy & Society), collected between early 2012 and October 2013 enough evidence to present the findings and propose recommendations. The most relevant of them are listed below:
Findings:
- Dependency on the family sponsor. A large proportion of family migrants in the studied countries are women at working age, with “lower labour market participation than nationals”. According to the study, residency rules create an institutionalised dependency of family migrants on their sponsor, restricting their independent access to public funds and making them more “vulnerable to abuse or exploitation in unequal relationships”.
- Extra barriers. In the Netherlands and the UK there are “notable restrictions on access to public funds for five years after entry”. Moreover, there is limited or no financial support for post-compulsory education during that period. For example, the restrictions to funded English/Dutch courses and the expectations to pay course costs can “create barriers to family migrants’ social and labour market participation”.
- Rights in practice. Even when family member’s rights are granted, this is not sufficient to ensure their access in practice, due to “bureaucratic inefficiencies and procedural delays”, especially in the United Kingdom and Spain. There is confusion among service providers about migrants’ entitlements because of “the complexity of rules arising from the escalation in conditionality of access to services”.
Recommendations:
- Consider the potential impact and proportionality of proposed new restrictions, taking into account that financial restrictions, for example those related to language learning, may generate “unanticipated medium and longer-term costs through limiting social and labour market participation”.
- Better training for the service-providers about migrants’ entitlement. Moreover, the existing system is “complex and confusing”, and greater clarity would be “advantageous for all concerned”.
- Be cautious adopting “mainstreaming integration policy measures”, which do not put the focus on any particular group, because “they may overlook challenges that particularly affect family migrants”.
To see the executive summary, the comparative report and papers related to the project, access http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/research/welfare/impacim/
Source: https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/media/PR-2013-IMPACIM_Comparative.pdf
IMPACIM (The Impact of Restrictions and Entitlements on the Integration of Family Migrants) has also noticed there is a lack of research-based knowledge about the experiences of family members. To contribute to the improvement of the situation, the project studied the “impact of admission criteria that impose restrictive conditions of stay (in particular those relating to jobs, public services, welfare benefits and voting) on the integration of third country national family migrants moving to EU Member States”.
Four research teams, based in Germany (University of Bamberg), the Netherlands (Erasmus University of Rotterdam), Spain (Complutense University of Madrid) and the United Kingdom (Centre on Migration, Policy & Society), collected between early 2012 and October 2013 enough evidence to present the findings and propose recommendations. The most relevant of them are listed below:
Findings:
- Dependency on the family sponsor. A large proportion of family migrants in the studied countries are women at working age, with “lower labour market participation than nationals”. According to the study, residency rules create an institutionalised dependency of family migrants on their sponsor, restricting their independent access to public funds and making them more “vulnerable to abuse or exploitation in unequal relationships”.
- Extra barriers. In the Netherlands and the UK there are “notable restrictions on access to public funds for five years after entry”. Moreover, there is limited or no financial support for post-compulsory education during that period. For example, the restrictions to funded English/Dutch courses and the expectations to pay course costs can “create barriers to family migrants’ social and labour market participation”.
- Rights in practice. Even when family member’s rights are granted, this is not sufficient to ensure their access in practice, due to “bureaucratic inefficiencies and procedural delays”, especially in the United Kingdom and Spain. There is confusion among service providers about migrants’ entitlements because of “the complexity of rules arising from the escalation in conditionality of access to services”.
Recommendations:
- Consider the potential impact and proportionality of proposed new restrictions, taking into account that financial restrictions, for example those related to language learning, may generate “unanticipated medium and longer-term costs through limiting social and labour market participation”.
- Better training for the service-providers about migrants’ entitlement. Moreover, the existing system is “complex and confusing”, and greater clarity would be “advantageous for all concerned”.
- Be cautious adopting “mainstreaming integration policy measures”, which do not put the focus on any particular group, because “they may overlook challenges that particularly affect family migrants”.
To see the executive summary, the comparative report and papers related to the project, access http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/research/welfare/impacim/
Source: https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/media/PR-2013-IMPACIM_Comparative.pdf
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