Conclusions and Implications for Theory and Policy

Abstract

As I suggested at the start of this book, the literature applying human wellbeing analysis to international migration debates is relatively sparse. This study has attempted to go some way towards bridging this gap by investigating international migration though examination of the lives that people value and the extent to which they are able to achieve what they value via this strategy. It argues that the point of human wellbeing analysis is not only to examine the objective or structural conditions for migrants in particular places and to deduce their needs from this but also to go beyond this to incorporate their own subjective understandings of the factors that enhance or constrain human wellbeing outcomes. Such an approach acknowledges the significance of structural issues (such as how inequalities are perpetuated through the labour market) but does not assume that these are the only issues, and avoids risking exclusion of other lines of enquiry or factors that migrants themselves identify as important. It also expands existing work on the tactics that migrants employ to ‘survive’ or ‘get by’ by analysing what they need to ‘live well’ across different contexts and how this varies, for example, by gender and over the life course. Application of this approach offers insights into the needs that migrants themselves identify in their attempts to ‘live well’, how far they are able to meet the goals that they set for themselves and how these change as part of the process of international migration.