My paper for this special issue (Ruhs, 2010), which builds on analysis in a previous paper with Phil Martin (Ruhs and Martin, 2008), suggests the hypothesis of a trade-off (i.e. an inverse relationship) between the number and some of the socio-economic rights of low-skilled migrant workers admitted to high-income countries. Ruhs (2010) discusses the economic factors and mechanisms that may give rise to such a trade-off and presents several brief case studies that, I argue, provide some illustrative empirical support for the existence of a trade-off. As I make clear in the conclusion, there is ‘clearly a need for more systematic empirical research that includes a larger number of countries and that investigates alternative explanations of the relationship between the number and rights of low-skilled migrant workers admitted to high-income countries’ (Ruhs, 2010, p. 276).
Ruhs, M. (2010) 'Numbers versus Rights in Low-Skilled Labour Immigration Policy? A Comment on Cummins and Rodríguez (2010)', Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 11(2): 305-309