Work and welfare take-up of enlargement migrants in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

The Brexit decision was affected by the false perception that European Union (EU) enlargement migration, in particular from Romania and Bulgaria (EU2), has been a burden to the UK. The article analyses the debated but largely underresearched EU2 migration to the UK after accession to the EU in 2007 using data of the British Labour Force Survey. The novel findings are that EU2 migrants are found to exhibit quite different characteristics and behaviour than the other European migrants while doing better concerning work, self-employment and welfare take-up.

KEYWORDS:

• International migration
• employment
• welfare benefits
• Romania
• Bulgaria

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• F22
• J30
• J61

Acknowledgements

This article uses data from the British Labour Force Survey which is Crown Copyright and has been made available by the Office for National Statistics through the UK Data Service. The author thanks an editor and one anonymous referee of this journal as well as participants of the 2017 EBES Conference in Rome for valuable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ EU2 (joined 2007): Bulgaria and Romania; EU8 (joined 2004): Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.