Numbers versus Rights in Low‐Skilled Labour Immigration Policy? A Comment on Cummins and Rodríguez (2010)

TLDR: Ruhs et al. as discussed by the authors investigated the relationship between the number and socio-economic rights of low-skilled migrants admitted to high-income countries and concluded that there is a need for more systematic empirical research that includes a larger number of countries and that investigates alternative explanations.

Abstract: 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) The paper by Cummins and Rodriguez (C&R, 2010) aims to provide this systematic empirical analysis. C&R conclude that their statis...