Labor migration and migrant social protection in three regional organizations – Inequalities as a driving force?

Abstract

This paper compares how three regional organizations, namely ASEAN, the EU and Mer- cosur, have addressed the question of movement of labor between member states. Most prominently, we compare the extent to which citizens of other member states are included into national systems of social protection within these regions. For each organization, the paper identifies milestone agreements that pertain to or move towards freedom of move- ment and/or allow intra-regional migrants to access social security. It connects the trajec- tory of agreements to the level of inequality at the respective points in time, both in regard to GDP per capita and, where available, welfare state effort measured as social expen- ditures as a percentage of GDP. Our findings point to regional inequality – especially in regard to economic standing and to some extent also welfare state effort – as factors that are associated with differences both between regional organizations as well as differ- ences within organizations over time.