This chapter provides a summary of the key findings, along with a discussion of their implications for research, theory and policy making. It then turns to address the research limitations and concludes with an agenda for future research.

Key findings and implications for policy

This study sought to explore the poverty consequences of international migration from a unique multi-site and intergenerational perspective, based on comparisons across three family generations of settler and returnee migrants and their stayer counterparts who remained in their country of origin.

The emerging evidence confirms Hypothesis 1, which expects the settlers to fare the worst. The first generation of settlers, who contributed to the construction of post-war Europe, are exposed to the highest risk of poverty at their pensionable age, followed by their younger counterparts. Hence, migration to Europe cannot be said to have been as economically beneficial for the settlers as it has been for the returnees who across all generations fare the best. The settlers from subsequent generations do, nevertheless, accrue some economic benefits from their ancestors’ decisions to migrate. These benefits seem to trickle down not so much through direct transfer of economic capital (that is, money or assets) but possibly through conversion of their male ancestors’ social and informal cultural capital accumulations (connections, knowledge and experience) into cash. The migration journey seems to have helped female settlers to a degree by giving them the chance to live and work in less patriarchal contexts. However, in line with Hypothesis 2 and Hooijer and Picot’s (2015) findings, the settlers remain excluded from the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of welfare states renowned for their generosity.

At first sight, the evidence may appear to provide only partial support for Hypothesis 3, which predicts little improvement in the poverty status of the settlers across generations. However, although the risk of falling into monetary poverty proved to be significantly lower for the second generation than the first, this decline seems to have occurred not because the conditions of access to (labour) markets and welfare have substantially improved for the second- and third- generation settlers but because their first- generation counterparts have transitioned into the retirement phase of their lives under highly unfavourable conditions.