DeZIM_lunch_discussion | Social Rights of Migrants Worldwide

How are migrants’ social rights structured around the world? What differences exist between countries in the Global North and the Global South—and are there any signs of convergence? In this workshop, we will present the new Immigrant Social Rights Dataset (ImmigSR) to the public for the first time.

The workshop provides an overview of the current state of research on migrants’ social rights and addresses, in particular, the hitherto limited amount of comparative research involving countries in the Global South. We demonstrate that existing approaches are often only partially reproducible, comparable, and transferable to other contexts.

Against this backdrop, we present a newly developed three-dimensional concept of migrants’ social rights. It systematically distinguishes between

• legal status groups,
• types of social benefits, and
• forms of institutional restrictions.

Based on this framework, we introduce the ImmigSR dataset, which comparatively documents the de jure social rights of migrants in 45 countries worldwide for the period from 1980 to 2021. The results reveal both regional similarities and significant differences between the Global North and the Global South. At the same time, signs of a slow convergence can be observed.

The first hour of the workshop is dedicated to the presentation and discussion of the key findings. 

• Welcome by Dr. Noa K. Ha (Research Director of the DeZIM Institute) 
• Presentation and discussion by Dr. Friederike Römer (Head of the Consensus & Conflict Department)
• This will be followed by an opportunity for informal discussion.

What questions does the event address?

• Whether and to what extent non-citizens are granted social rights
• How social rights differ depending on residency status
• Which social benefits are included and what restrictions apply
• How regulations can be compared across countries and global regions
• Whether long-term trends or convergences between the Global North and the Global South can be identified