Migration, Boundaries and Differentiated Citizenship: Contested Frameworks for Inclusion and Exclusion

Contemporary migration across borders is beset by contradictory pressures and challenges. Some borders remain relatively open, especially for potential immigrants with valued skills and assets or for humanitarian reasons, but in many other cases borders are becoming increasingly more regulated or impermeable. The differential capacities for mobility that accompany these developments are contributing to new categories and hierarchies of citizenship and belonging which are being shaped by and exacerbate significant social, economic and political inequalities. This editorial highlights core relationships that have emerged in the process of regulating geographical and social boundaries in different national contexts, focusing on the intersections between dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion and the construction of differential categories of citizenship. The editorial establishes a framework for the articles that follow in this thematic issue, emphasizing the contested, fragmented, variable and highly uneven nature of borders and citizenship regimes.


Introduction
Many millions of people cross international borders each year.Most crossings, undertaken by those with economic resources, human capital, and other valued assets, are relatively routine, facilitating tourism, family visitation, work-related activities, business transactions, and other short-term pursuits (International Organization for Migration, 2018).For growing numbers of people, however, border crossings have become more unsettling and dangerous.As populations displaced by armed conflict, natural and human-induced disasters, violence, and other risks rise to unprecedented levels (United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 2018), borders have come to take on new symbolic as well as politicalgeographical significance.Politics of nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and hostility to outsiders (redefined in many cases to include immigrants and racial minorities who have long been part of a particular national fabric) stand in sharp contrast to visions guided by aspirations for more fluid forms of mobility and global rights.Heightened attention to the maintenance and policing of borders and border crossings has intensified new discourses and debates over citizenship, including questions about who is eligible to belong in a given nation-state and which kids of rights and obligations accompany transience, residency and belonging.Running through all of these concerns are issues of social inclusion and exclusion.
This editorial piece highlights core issues and themes in recent literature concerning borders and boundary maintenance in relation to migration and citizenship rights.It is guided by a focus on the ways in which national policies, and the socioeconomic and political contexts within which these policies have been framed, have contributed to varied and distinct categories of citizenship and entitlements which, in turn, have unequal consequences for socioeconomic opportunities and well-being within and across populations.These phenomena, regulated principally through sovereign nationstates as well as non-state entities, are multilayered, highly complex and contradictory in nature as they come to be shaped by and contribute to unequal relations of power and differentiated social positions both within and among populations.

Citizenship as Inclusion and Exclusion
Boundaries have different layers of significance in relation to citizenship and migration.Nation-states represent markers around which identity, belonging, and heritage are defined, but they also establish legal and social frameworks that have material consequences.Nationstates, as bounded entities, are circumscribed as distinct geographic and political spaces that intersect with other types of boundaries, of a social and symbolic nature; access to essential rights, responsibilities, and resources of various kinds may be extended or restricted on a differential basis in relation to the kinds of distinctions represented though these bounded relationships (Lamont & Molnár, 2002).Through their capacity to define and regulate criteria for entry, citizenship and other forms of status, nation-states establish policy frameworks that contribute to the determination of specific rights along with various entitlements and obligations that accompany those rights.Citizenship, in other words, involves much more than abstract conceptual and legal frameworks that articulate principles, rights and obligations associated with social and political participation and belonging; rather, it is given meaning and substance in the context of the particular material conditions in which these have come to take shape.
The boundaries that delineate each of the elements identified above-the physical contours and forms of sovereignty that define specific nations, the regulation of migration, and the citizenship regimes within particular state formations-are socially and politically constructed and contested.They are played out in conjunction with more general tensions and configurations through which social actions and relations have real and unequal consequences for people within different geographical, political and social spaces.Balibar (2015, p. 75) situates these elements of citizenship in relation to dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, which "are not impersonal processes; they are relationships of force exercised by institutions and power apparatuses over individual and collective subjects".Bauder (2008), drawing on Bourdieu, emphasizes further that citizenship itself represents a form of capital around which distinctions linked with unequal positions, capacities for influence, and forms of exclusion are produced.Over the past two decades prolific bodies of literature have emerged, offering several distinct perspectives and assessments concerning the impact of globalization and other major social and economic changes on migration, citizenship and nationstate formations, reflected in particular policy directions and dilemmas emerging within specific decision-making contexts as well as in general discourses on citizenshiprelated matters.
With respect to substantive orientations, economic activity contributes to migration both directly, from dislocations produced by changes in technology, production and flows of capital, and indirectly, through displacement by human-induced climate change, political instability, conflict, and other factors.Underlying many of these phenomena is the restructuring of capitalism on a global basis, contributing to changing patterns of immigration as well as to surges in temporary and irregular migration (McNevin, 2011;Rygiel, 2010).Phenomena related to migration also stimulate economic activity in numerous ways.In order to regulate, administer or restrict migration activities, for instance, state officials and private sector agencies are engaged in roles devoted to immigrant screening, visa processing, border security, policing, immigration law, consultation services, transportation, and many other activities; on a less official basis, human trafficking, production of false documentation, and other illegal activities can also be highly commercialized and profitable (Gammeltoft-Hansen & Sørensen, 2013).The consequences of these processes are highly uneven.For some, high initial costs may be compensated for by enhanced personal, financial or family security over time.For many others, exposure to vulnerability to a wide range of material, physical and psychological risks may create longer-term difficulties from which full recovery may not be possible even as some individuals or agencies in positions to broker or exploit these vulnerabilities benefit substantially.At a more general level, citizenship may offer protection against markets (Somers, 2008), but the capacity to sustain a broadly-based framework for citizenship and deliver the guarantees encompassed within it are threatened by fiscal and political limitations including those associated with neoliberalism and other challenges to state autonomy (Castles & Davidson, 2000;Cohen, 2009;Rygiel, 2010).
Changing discourses and analyses of state sovereignty and citizenship reflect the tensions and contradictions associated with relations of inclusion and exclusion.Extending from the late nineteenth into the latter half of the twentieth century, intersecting with growth in the scope and scale of welfare state activities, notions of citizenship focused especially on the expansion of rights across territories and domains, informed most powerfully by Marshall's (1950) elaboration of the civic, political and social.Whereas debates concerning the growth phase of welfare state activities tended to be framed within a relatively narrow set of parameters marked by considerable degrees of consensus over key elements of citizenship, the analysis of more recent trends, amidst growing uncertainty produced by major economic, social and political upheavals since the mid-1970s, has been more fragmented.
Significant structural transformations manifest in changes in global flows of capital and labour, changing demographic and geopolitical trends, and shifting re-lationships across other mutually intersecting spheres have been accompanied by a remarkable array of initiatives to reframe, redesign and in some cases eradicate welfare state activities, in the process challenging prevailing assumptions about nation-state sovereignty.Considerable attention, whether in relation to specific cases, comparative analysis, or more general trends, has been focused on the erosion or restriction of rights as states lose their capacity to regulate and enforce the terms of citizenship and meet accompanying demands posed by continuing and emerging social risks.This analysis is especially oriented to concerns about subgroups within national or migrant populations, including asylum seekers, refugees, undocumented workers, temporary migrants, and displaced workers and family members, confronted with exposure to ever-greater levels of social and economic vulnerability (Bonoli, 2005;McNevin, 2011).However, there is also parallel interest in the role that entities other than the nation-state, including the European Union and other quasi-state structures as well as hybrid economic and political bodies stretching within or across nations, have come to play in citizenship-related activities (Fahrmeir, 2007;Soysal, 1994).These developments have also given rise to work that advocates more comprehensive frameworks for citizenship.Several new possibilities, oriented to expanding citizenship rights both to ensure that all persons have protection from exposure to market forces and to mobilize capacities to address emerging global risks, are represented in concepts like cosmopolitan or transnational citizenship as well as advocacy to enshrine into particular legal and constitutional frameworks the principles articulated in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and other guiding statements (Ballin, 2014;Held, 2006;Linklater, 2002).

Citizenship as Fragmented and Incomplete
Empirical evidence drawn from diverse national and regional settings suggests a more complex reality than tends to be encompassed within broad discourses and frameworks of citizenship and rights.In many cases rights and benefits are becoming more fragmented or polarized as linkages among citizenship, rights, identities, and nation-states break down, but these tendencies should not be taken as indications that nation-states have surrendered sovereignty to global forces (Bloemraad, Korteweg, & Yurdakul, 2008;Lem, 2013;Sassen, 2006).There is tremendous diversity, on a global scale, of welfare state and citizenship regimes (Gough & Therborn, 2010;Rygiel, 2010).Variations and contradictions associated with border regulation and citizenship entitlement are evident even within the context of the European Union and other supranational frameworks oriented to principles of free movement and common state provision for access to core rights and services (Benhabib, 2004, p. 168;Guild, 2009;Jenson, 2007).In some cases, nation-states, influenced by various forms of populism or authoritarian regimes, may rely on nationalism and xenophobia to justify the imposition of rigid controls on border crossings or the restriction of rights and entitlements for selected groups (McNevin, 2011;Ní Mhurchú, 2014), sometimes mutually reinforced with public perceptions that overstate significantly the actual numbers of immigrants (Guskin & Wilson, 2017, p. 25).Lyon (2016, p. 15) goes so far as to suggest that global migration has become dominated by three main trends expressed as border security and militarization, criminalization of migrants and migration, and enactment and enforcement of laws in the guise of anti-terrorism.New political arrangements, economic relationships and technological applications have also contributed to the externalization of border control as migrants become subject to screening, surveillance, detention, or deportation in various locales in the process of moving across national settings (Mezzadra & Nielson, 2011, p. 13).Standing in contrast to processes linked with the restriction and control of migration are practices whereby nation-states (or localized state units in federal systems) may relax regulations or introduce more flexible arrangements to secure investment capital and accommodate labour market demands, especially those oriented to the most highly skilled occupational categories (Plascencia, Freeman, & Setzler, 2003).Differences in national frameworks for citizenship and immigration also reflect a range of other mitigating factors, including attention to social cohesion as the desires and circumstances of newly arrived populations come to be balanced in relation to demands posed by pre-existing national populations (Bevelander & Pendakur, 2012, p. 144).Greater attention is being paid to the ways in which the voices and capacities of the most vulnerable groups, typically considered as relatively powerless, are able, both directly and in conjunction with advocates and allies, to contribute to the framing and direction of conceptions and policy orientations related to citizenship (Isin, 2015;Johnson, 2014;Lem & Barber, 2010).
Citizenship, understood in relation to the complex dynamics and struggles through which citizenship rights come to be defined, regulated and realized, represents a project that is fundamentally incomplete and contradictory.The most common reference points by which progress towards full citizenship in a given context is assessed are typically aligned with measures reflecting the terms of political philosophic debates, especially in relation to either the advancement of liberal orientations concerned with equality of individuals or communitarian and republican alternatives that establish different parameters for membership and participation (Lister & Pia, 2008;Miller, 2000).However, more critical analyses grounded in empirical studies have brought to the forefront numerous conflicts, tensions and material constraints with respect both to the boundaries that determine eligibility for particular forms of citizenship and discrepancies between formal rights and substantive entitlements.Lockwood (1996) emphasizes that citizenship in capitalist or liberal democracies is inherently incomplete and stratified because, through its interconnec-tions with markets and state bureaucracies, it is embedded within and helps to legitimize unequal social relations.Mackert and Turner (2017, pp. 2-3) situate processes of inclusion and exclusion in relation to three core tensions within modern conceptions of citizenship, expressed with respect to citizenship as status (rights associated with the individual) versus praxis (citizen as political actor), formal equality as opposed to substantive social inequality, and its universal applicability to all versus the particularistic terms within which citizenship rights are actually extended.Cohen (2009) further delineates boundaries and categories through which particular citizens or members of a political community who have relatively strong citizenship rights are differentiated from those, including children, convicted criminals, migrants, guest workers, and many other categories of "semi-citizens", whose status limits or denies them full access to one or more clusters of rights.
Cohen's analysis, though focused most fully on the logics through which rights and citizenship come to be categorized, also returns attention to the insight that these categories and the forms of recognition associated with them are subject to contestation and change.Isin (2017), employing the concept of "performative citizenship", extends the understanding of citizenship as relational and dynamic in nature.The focus on performativity signifies that citizenship is not merely a legal mechanism or symbolic category that defines statuses in accordance with specified kinds of rights and duties; rather, and more importantly, citizenship derives meaning as a focus of social struggles and claims advanced, enacted and transformed by differentially positioned social actors (Isin, 2017, pp. 501-502).The meaning and terms of citizenship may be modified, expanded or nullified, in various ways, whether procedurally through legal and political challenges or in relation to declarations of sovereign exceptionalism, colonization, and other more violent processes (Agamben, 1998;Svirsky & Bignall, 2012).Individuals and collectivities can also undergo changes in status, through redefinition and in conjunction with significant transitions in identity, life course stage, or dislocation within existing citizenship frameworks.For nation-states there are several reasons, in addition to the management of ongoing activities such as the regulation of migration or allocation of resources, why it is important to maintain capacities to define and transform distinct categories of citizenship as well as to maintain possibilities for subjects to change statuses.Processes of citizenship education and naturalization, oriented to anticipated or desired changes in citizenship status, for instance, represent in part disciplinary processes oriented to foster social cohesion; social control can also be exerted more negatively by threats or actions to revoke particular statuses or limit entitlements.Citizenship, as all of these examples demonstrate, is neither a static nor a unified phenomenon; rather, citizenship comes to be constituted both symbolically and through social practice in highly differentiated ways in relation to multiple reference points and levels of activity.

Citizenship, Modernity, and Post-Colonial Configurations
It should not surprising that citizenship has come to be understood as a nuanced and incomplete project in a social and ideational context in which modernity itself has been called into question.Contemporary discourses related to citizenship have been framed in terms of a cluster of common reference points (including individual rights, markets and state formations) within discourses associated with liberal democratic practice.Marked transformations in the key relationships underpinning the social positions, identities, and institutional structures represented through these phenomena have given rise to new politics and policy frameworks as the relative rights and obligations of private, state and market entities come to be realigned in multiple ways (Esping- Andersen, 1990;Pierson, 1996).These changes, especially framed through debates concerning the essence and status of modernity in relation to postmodernism, multiple modernities, and other sociohistorical configurations, have also informed critical assessment of the Eurocentric nature of dominant conceptions, structures and practices associated with modernity.
Postcolonial theory along with a growing range of alternative critical social theories have informed an understanding of how concepts and practices associated with modern citizenship are themselves embedded in western epistemic and social structures which, through colonization, Orientalism and other relations of domination and subordination have denied, marginalized and misrepresented significant institutional and cultural characteristics of non-western societies and ignored the impact of mutual interactions produced through these relationships (Go, 2016).Critical postcolonial analysis has been enriched by attention to diverse conceptions and practices associated with citizenship within Indigenous societies and other social contexts; it has also highlighted how imperial powers have employed citizenship in conjunction with other colonial practices as a mechanism to categorize, regulate and govern subaltern populations through colonization (Isin, 2015;Ray, 2007).In a postcolonial global order, practices related to border control and regulation of migration and citizenship rights in many nations which claim formal adherence to nondiscrimination demonstrate the continuing significance of racialization and stigmatization of subaltern populations.Moving beyond critique, the shifting focus on citizenship in non-western contexts has made it possible to develop a more nuanced understanding of issues related to migration, border control and rights throughout Asia, Africa, and many other sites where previous research on these phenomena has been relatively limited or not widely known outside specific regional or linguistic contexts (e.g., Gaventa & Tandon, 2010;Goldman & Perry, 2002;Sadiq, 2009).
These insights have reinforced the understanding of citizenship as a signifier for distinct statuses which, in turn, enable or limit in a differential manner access to important political, social, economic, and psychic resources within and among populations.It is framed within territorial and social boundaries that are subject to periodic internal and external challenges concerning who may cross those borders, and under what conditions, as well as to the rights and duties associated with particular forms of citizenship status.Contestation over how citizenship is defined and regulated and distinct approaches to the realization of citizenship aspirations and practices are expressed as relations of inclusion and exclusion, contributing to an extensive array of diverse social categories in which rights for some are being expanded while those for others are restricted or endangered.

Citizenship: Fragmentation and Hierarchies
The major themes highlighted in the preceding discussion have revealed citizenship as contested, partial, and somewhat fluid, having both symbolic and material significance.In designating the terms, nature and scope of membership within a nation-state or other political unit, it thereby establishes terms in accordance with which exclusion as well as inclusion come to be associated with distinct forms of status.The notion of citizenship as differentiated in these ways encompasses a more general and diverse set of citizenship practices than those typically referred to in conjunction with concepts of "differentiated citizenship" employed to advance a more socially inclusive or active framework for citizenship (Lister, 2000).Differentiated citizenship, as articulated by Young (1990), is advocated to address circumstances in which universal rights associated with membership in a particular national community are insufficient and therefore in need of enrichment to ensure equity for designated groups; it is intended to advance political representation for oppressed groups in order to realize opportunities that are inhibited by barriers embedded within dominant assumptions and institutional arrangements represented in discourses of universal or conventional coverage (Young, 1990).In contrast to analyses that focus on the decline or diminishment of contemporary citizenship and rights, this notion of differentiated citizenship suggests that contemporary citizenship remains a meaningful reference point for exploring possibilities to broaden the terms by which social inclusion may be advanced.In these respects, there is some affinity with recent work that draws attention to the various ways in which citizenship has become meaningful not simply within the nation-state but also at other levels, as expressed through conceptions such as "nested citizenship" and embeddedness in a "multi-levelled polity" (Castles & Davidson, 2000;Delanty, 2000;Kivisto & Faist, 2007).Understood in these terms, a broadened conception of differentiated citizenship makes it possible to focus on the varied ways in which citizenship forms and rights are being alternatively expanded and constricted in complex ways.
Processes related to globalization have contributed to new regulatory frameworks and pathways across borders, some of which constrict or blur national autonomy in important ways, but these coexist with new and continuing forms of national expression and hybrid social, political and economic entities.These are reflected in a vast array of citizenship regimes in which statuses, rights, entitlements, and obligations are characterized by differentiation or fragmentation along several dimensions and levels within and across nations.At the most general level, it is important to understand how citizenship is understood in any particular social context.At the most general level, variations in abstract human rights principles, legal frameworks, and rights are further distinguished as they come to be translated into practices through particular domains associated with political, social, and economic, and other activities.The degree to which formal rights are effective varies in accordance with mechanisms and procedures to protect and enforce them, including the safeguards, entitlements and obligations conveyed through particular categories of citizenship and community membership.
The practical or empirical experience of citizenship is highly differentiated, with numerous points of variation between and within both incoming and pre-existing populations.Migration and border controls contribute to differentiation based on the degree to which conditions of entry are open or restrictive, explicit and hidden immigration criteria (such as language and skill requirements, immigration and visa classifications, and designated or restricted national sources), and restrictions or conditions associated with temporary or guest workers, refugees, undocumented persons, and other irregular migrants.Across all of these groupings there exist significant variations in post-entry status categories and rights with respect to extent and timing of access to and degree of coverage provided for education, health care, political participation, and other specified services.Related to the latter are issues related to portability of rights across nations or regions, conditions and various limitations associated with eligibility for and pathways to naturalization and citizenship status.Internally, citizenship is differentiated in additional ways, including protections for or restrictions of ethnic minorities, diverse forms of Indigenous rights and status, and residence-based population registration and regulation.All of these factors, along with other dimensions, contribute to differentiated forms of citizenship which are produced by and contribute to unequal opportunities and access to essential resources and prospects for well-being in social, political, economic, and other realms.

The Thematic Issue
This thematic issue highlights recent research that explores many of the complex intersections between capacities for mobility, citizenship and belonging.The focus, in particular, concerns factors contributing to the production of differential categories of citizenship and entitlement, representing research within specific national contexts as well as comparative studies within western Europe, Canada and Turkey.The articles explore the impact these changes are having for diverse populations, in many cases reinforcing broader trends contributing to inequalities in the distribution of income, access to health care, education, social welfare, political participation, and other services essential for social wellbeing.The analysis, nonetheless, reveals that there is no unilinear trajectory either within or across national cases, as pathways diverge or change course periodically across nations, populations, and time periods.The articles are organized into three thematic areas, focusing, respectively, on regulation of entry and citizenship rights, processes of integration and citizenship development, and changes in citizenship participation and entitlements over time.

Regulating Borders and Access to Citizenship Rights
The regulation of international borders has emerged as a prominent focus of media attention and heated political discourse across much of Europe, the United States and many other contexts, especially with respect to asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants.While issues of border policing and regulation of entry are accorded most attention, states must also attend to the welfare of those who have arrived.Four articles highlight some of the specific ways in which nations, in efforts to manage migration, have established complex legislative and administrative frameworks that have contributed to new categories of citizenship giving rise to differential rights and opportunities.
The first article in this section, by Synnøve Bendixsen (2018), highlights the nuanced ways in which citizenship is constructed and regulated through "hierarchies of belonging".With particular reference to concerns about rejected asylum seekers and other irregular migrants in Norway, the article focuses on ways in which the state has sought to regulate mobility by producing differential status categories and requirements that determine rights to work and access to health care and social assistance benefits.
Anne-Kathrin Will (2018) also demonstrates the ways in which boundaries of citizenship and belonging contribute to hierarchies within populations.Focusing on several recent legislative changes in Germany, her work reveals how asylum seekers increasingly have been differentiated in accordance with several criteria into numerous categories, each of which is associated with differing entitlements and resources.
Citizenship rights for members of a designated status do not necessarily guarantee access to services or resources for which they may be entitled, as Andy Jolly (2018) shows with reference to the case of support services for undocumented children in the UK.Despite legislative safeguards to support the welfare of all children, "statutory neglect" produced through inadequate or conflicting guidelines and practices has resulted in severe social, economic and physical hardship for many undocumented family members.
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer and Clara Holzinger (2018) examine critically the extent to which objectives to establish free movement accompanied by portability of social rights within the European Union have been realized.Drawing on the experiences of several migrants from "new" (2004 and after) member states living or working in "old" European Union member states, the analysis highlights several barriers that contribute to a gulf between formal and substantive rights, resulting in uneven and incomplete forms of social protection for many individuals and family members.

Integration and Transitions to Citizenship
Citizenship entails more than prescribed sets of rights and status distinctions; it is also configured through social actions, identities and relationships.Three articles explore various dimensions along the pathway to gaining or practicing new types of citizenship status.
Observing the experiences of Eritrean refugees living in a community in Denmark, Peter Kaergaard Andersen, Lasse Mouritzen and Kristine Samson (2018) demonstrate how citizenship represents processes of becoming as newcomers seek to find meaningful spaces between their communities of origin and their new homes.Although citizenship is framed through dominant discourses and expectations in the host country, it is also enacted, expressed and transformed through interactions among populations drawing from diverse social and cultural resources.
Elke Winter (2018) also demonstrates the importance of acknowledging the understandings and perspectives that immigrants and other newcomers hold with respect to expectations and processes related to integration.Focusing on pathways to citizenship through naturalization, her research reveals the ways in which immigrants come to recognize the differential capacities they have to achieve citizenship status, which they see, in part, as embedded and reinforced through distorted and uneven expectations, assumptions and silences encompassed within official citizenship documents and protocols.
Kenneth Horvath (2018) addresses how educational inequality may be reproduced in conjunction with negative representations of migrants.Data concerning teachers' perceptions of student backgrounds and educational problems in the German context reveal that teachers tend to hold lower educational expectations and are more likely to associate educational problems with students with foreign-born parents and those in relatively disadvantaged positions.However unintended this may be, by framing particular categories of immigrants in negative or deficit terms, educators contribute to the likelihood that social inequalities are reproduced over time.

The Immigrant Experience over Time
Differential citizenship status can reinforce social and economic inequality, but this is not always the case.Those in positions of relative disadvantage, including many immigrants and refugees looking to establish themselves in a new environment, may be able to cultivate sufficient skills, experiences, credentials, and social and political connections to pursue meaningful social positions and opportunities.Varying dynamics associated with immigration and its impact over time are the focus of three articles in the last section of this issue.
Per Adman and Per Strömblad (2018), drawing on survey data, observe that while immigrants to Sweden appear to be somewhat disengaged from the political system, this is not necessarily the case.Their knowledge of and participation in political systems tend to be a function of their conditions at the time of arrival, whereas experiences in the Swedish context, particularly insofar as they are able to achieve higher levels of education and language proficiency, come to be associated with greater political knowledge and participation.These findings suggest that political representation for minority populations is likely to be more effective as many groups become more established over a period of time.
Christiane Timmerman, Meia Walravens, Joris Michielsen, Nevriye Acar and Lore Van Praag (2018) shift attention to the impact of out-migration on those who remain in their home communities.Focusing on Emirdağ, a district in Turkey which experienced high levels of emigration in the late 20th century, the analysis reveals a situation in which limited prospects for secure employment and other barriers for migrants to Europe have contributed to the breakdown of traditional patterns of family care and fiscal support, leaving an aging population that has become highly vulnerable to poverty, isolation, and other problems.The analysis points to the need to understand migration as part of a circuit involving extensive, and highly uneven, interactions among people, communities, and resources.
Yaojun Li (2018) also draws attention to intergenerational factors, focusing especially on prospects for ethnic minorities and immigrants in the UK.His analysis suggests that while immigrants, reflecting in part initial selection criteria and parental investment in their children's success, tend to have relatively high levels of educational attainment, this does not translate equally into subsequent occupational and class mobility.Socioeconomic opportunities are influenced, in particular, by country of origin and race-based factors, contributing to sustained disadvantage for many racial minorities.
The picture that emerges collectively from the articles in this thematic issue is one in which prospects for social inclusion are highly unequal, especially for migrant and minority populations.Although nearly all, with some exceptions, are encouraged to participate in core venues of social and economic activity, new status categories and regulatory regimes have contributed to complex and highly differentiated forms of citizenship and rights that have produced multiple, highly uneven dynamics of inclusion and exclusion.The variance in citizenship rights across several important dimensions creates conditions, sometimes by design and in other cases as a result of unanticipated intersecting factors, in which many members of a nation or community have limited or no access to work, health care benefits, adequate housing, or other resources essential for meaningful social participation and well-being.