Precarity, work exploitation and inferior social rights: EU citizenship of Polish labour migrants in Norway

ABSTRACT

EU labour migrants enjoy comprehensive social rights while migrating within the block. However, research from various member states documents the presence of EU migrants who lack access to welfare support despite having lived and worked in these countries for years. This article explores why some EU migrants are excluded from welfare support despite a history of labour market participation in the host country. The phenomenon is studied through the lens of precarity, focusing on the nexus between precarious working conditions and migrants’ social rights. Based on participant observation and interviews with Polish labour migrants who struggled to access welfare benefits in Norway, the article shows, how precarious working conditions, including unstable employment, and work exploitation, such as wage theft, tax evasion and other breaches of Norwegian labour laws, function as barriers to successful benefit claims. Previous research has highlighted a divide in EU citizenship between labour migrants, who enjoy comprehensive social rights, and ‘economically inactive’ migrants, who have no or very limited social rights. This article argues that the divide runs through the working migrant population, protecting migrants in secure and stable employment while failing those in precarious work.

KEYWORDS:

• EU Citizenship
• precarity
• work Exploitation
• welfare benefits
• Polish migrants in Norway

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all the individuals who participated in my research. Thank you to my supervisors, my colleagues in the Migration Religion and Intercultural Relations (MIGREL) research group and Aleksandra Czech from the Salvation Army’s Migration Centre for their careful reading and feedback on drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The research project has been approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (reference number 652219).

2 Unless they have been granted permanent residence, which EU citizens are entitled to after five years of continuously rightfully residing (for example holding worker status) in Norway.

3 Amounts given for 2019. The exchange rate between Norwegian Kroner and Euro was roughly 10:1 at the time.