Migrant deprivation, conditionality of legal status and the welfare state

This article adds to our theoretical understanding of the determination of third-country national (TCN) migrant deprivation and poverty in western Europe. The stratifying effects of different types of legal status on migrant outcomes have been established in previous research. The conditionality that states attach to securing different types of legal status has heretofore been overlooked as an important explanatory factor, however. A measure of the conditionality attached to attaining the key social rights-granting status of long-term residency (LTR) is operationalized using cross-national policy data. Building on existing theory, we hypothesize that the negative impact of welfare generosity on TCN material deprivation is moderated by a state's level of LTR conditionality, such that deprivation will be greatest where conditionality is high and generosity is low. This hypothesis is tested using large-scale European microdata in the context of multilevel modelling. The empirical results are consistent with the central hypothesis. These findings have implications for policymakers and for extant accounts of migrant welfare, the welfare state and the factors implicated in the determination of poverty and deprivation in Europe.