Welfare States and Immigrant Rights

Welfare States and Immigrant Rights deals with the impact of welfare states on immigrants' social rights, economic well-being and social inclusion, and it offers the first systematic comparison of immigrants' social rights across welfare states. To study immigrants' social rights the author develops an analytical framework that focuses on the interplay between 1) the type of welfare state regime, 2) forms of entry, or entry categories, and 3) the incorporation regime regulating the inclusion or exclusion of immigrants. The book maps out the development of immigrants' social rights from the early postwar period until around 2010 in six countries representing different welfare state regimes: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, and Denmark. Part I addresses three major issues. The first is how inclusive or exclusionary welfare state policies are in relation to immigrants, and especially how the type of welfare state and incorporation regime affect their social rights. The second issue concerns changes in immigrant rights and the direction of the change: rights extension versus rights contraction. The third issue is how immigrants' social rights compare to those of citizens. Part II shifts from policies affecting immigrant rights to the politics of the policies. It examines the politics of inclusion and exclusion in the six countries, focusing on social rights extension and contraction and changes in the policy dimensions of the incorporation regime that impinge on immigrant rights.

Diane Sainsbury was formerly Lars Hierta Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University. In 2009 she was Marie-Jahoda Guest Professor for International Women Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Among her most recent publications are, 'Women's Political Representation in Sweden: Discursive Resources and Institutional Presence', in Mona Lena Krook and Sarah Childs (eds), Women, Gender, and Politics: A Reader (Oxford University Press, 2010), 'Sweden: The Feminization of Poverty?' in Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg (ed.), Poor Women in Rich Countries (Oxford University Press, 2010), and 'Gender, Care and Welfare', in Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola and Laurel Weldon (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics (forthcoming). She is Professor Emeritus, Stockholm University.