For a long time welfare state scholars who addressed immigration focussed on whether high immigration diminishes popular support for the welfare state. Only recently have welfare state experts started to study how immigrants fare in advanced welfare states. Migration scholars, by contrast, have long been interested in the social and economic integration of immigrants. However, their analysis of migrants’ social rights often concentrated on formal rights and lacked attention to institutional configuration as well as effective implementation. This panel contributes to recent scholarship that seeks to overcome these limitations by combining insights from welfare and migration research.

All papers examine policy determinants of the socio-economic position of immigrants in Europe. While the first two papers have the outcomes at the centre of their research question, the other two papers take their starting point from policies. Jakobsen, Korpi, and Lorentzen evaluate policy determinants of immigrants’ labour market integration in Scandinavia. Their comparative design exploits the recent reforms of immigration and integration policies in Denmark by comparing outcomes there to those in Sweden and Norway. Hooijer and Picot widen the empirical scope to 16 West-European countries. Their fuzzy-set QCA analysis identifies the combinations of policies that contribute to a higher poverty risk of immigrants. Ruhs concentrates on labour immigration policies in Europe, examining trade-offs between immigrants’ access and their socio-economic rights. Finally, van Hooren and Hemerijck turn to the impact of recent welfare state reforms. Comparing five West-European countries they assess to what extent immigrants have suffered or benefited from these reforms.