Migrants’ irregular status in Europe is not a fixed legal category but a product of the interactions between migration, labour, welfare and family policy regimes. Drawing on research from the Horizon Europe I-CLAIM project, this Policy Brief shows that access to residence security and family life is increasingly conditioned by continuous employment, income thresholds, housing requirements and employer sponsorship. These criteria are embedded in gender-segmented labour markets and unequal care responsibilities. Women are disproportionately represented in undervalued and underprotected care and domestic work, while men are overrepresented in physically demanding and precarious sectors such as agriculture and platform-based delivery work, exposing both to different forms of vulnerability, exploitation and irregularisation.
To read the I-CLAIM report on which this policy brief is based, please click here.
The authors of this policy brief also include Lena Näre (professor of Sociology at the University of Helsinki) and Paula Merikoski (sociologist at the University of Helsinki). This report is part of the I-CLAIM Horizon Europe project.
