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Deserving the Right to Work? Immigration Officials and the Work Permit in Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2021

Caroline Schultz
Caroline Schultz*
Affiliation:
University of Bamberg, Germany E-mail: caroline.schultz@uni-bamberg.de
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Abstract

This article investigates the role of deservingness conceptions in the implementation of labour market access policies for migrants with precarious legal status. It explores how immigration officials frame the deservingness of work permit applicants, considering also the political, legal and societal context in which they work. The analysis takes account of the Control, Attitude, Reciprocity, Identity and Need (CARIN) criteria, and uses primary data of semi-structured interviews with senior officials in German municipal immigration offices. It finds that officials frequently employ deservingness frames inbuilt into the relevant parts of the law, but also behavioural norms that go beyond legal requirements. The article makes two main contributions. Providing empirical insight into the migration bureaucracy’s part in the implementation of labour market policy, it seeks to help advance understanding of the complex processes of differential in- and exclusion in countries of immigration. Furthermore, the research design allows putting the CARIN criteria to an empirical test.

Keywords

Labour market accessdeservingnessmigrationpolicy implementation
Type
Themed Section: The (Un)deserving Migrant? Street-Level Bordering Practices and Deservingness in Access to Social Services
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 497 - 508
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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