Controlling migration: the gender implications of work-related conditions in restricting rights to residence and to social benefits1

This concluding chapter looks at the debate on migration and so-called ‘benefit tourism’ from an explicit gender perspective, an often overlooked aspect in the debate. It examines how the aim of controlling migration led to the introduction of work-related conditions for benefit receipt that have restricted migrants' access to rights of residence and entitlement to social benefits in the UK. The emphasis on a particular relationship of migrants to the labour market privileges the high-income and continuously employed migrant worker, thus reinforcing women's risk of exclusion from access to social rights. Debates on so-called benefit tourism are thus not only misplaced, since access to income-related benefits is highly restricted in relation to work, but that the restrictions on migrants' access to rights and resources have strong gendered effects as regards who is excluded.