This book is concerned with the interaction of social and migration policies in specific political, economic and social contexts, which affect migrants’ welfare, well-being and inclusion. In Chapter One its empirical and analytical terrain were outlined as centering on three elements: the analysis of combined and interacting policy fields, especially migration, integration and welfare and labour markets; the interaction of polity and politics in these policy fields across different levels of policymaking; and finally, the consequent implications of these dynamics for migrants’ differential integration in European Union (EU) member state societies. In this final chapter, we review this terrain in the light of the book's contributions.

All the studies in this volume support the contention that contemporary migrants’ dual relationship with the country of origin and country of destination, their ‘transnationalism’ – whether migration is temporary, circular, serial or permanent – is directly shaped by policies, politics and polities (institutions), over which most migrants have no control. States’ and other institutions’ practices matter in fundamental ways for migrants’ experience of their migration, from entry, to residence, social entitlements, labour market access, income and well-being (see Crowley, 2001, 2005; Bigo and Guild, 2005; Hansen, 2009). The contributions in this volume have explored the dynamic interactions among these policy fields and the contentious politics that characterise them and their interaction. They have explored the ways in which these interactions played out across different levels of policymaking to structure and shape the conditions of possibility for policymaking. They have demonstrated how the stratification of rights between categories of migrant statuses is shaped by the main mode of integration (via, for example, ethnicity, nationality, family status, employment), applied to different migrant groups in different countries and historical contexts. They have also demonstrated how this could be cut across by the differentiated terms and conditions under which the mode of integration can be experienced (for example, privileged ethnicity, subject to different rights at different times; employment in the informal or formal labour market, in low or high-skill jobs, in a welfare system where social rights can be accrued). The rest of this chapter elaborates on the evidence presented in the contributions for the significance of interacting policies across institutional scales in shaping this differentiated integration.