Migrants’ economic integration : problematising economic citizenship

Abstract

Labour market policies to include migrants in their host societies through strategic integration activities usually relate host country belonging to labour market success, commodifying citizenship. Labour market success, however, is not “belonging;” raising the question of whether “economic citizenship” is a misnomer. National citizenships embed territorial, social and ethnic hierarchies in unequal ways. Migrants at the moment of their mobility are outside these national solidarities, and thus are commodified, with their rights depending on their labour market value. Access to national citizenship rights is an important structuring element in segmenting globalizing labour markets.