Migrant groups in a deficient system of social protection. Informal practices of social services. Emploees as an element in accessibility.

Abstract

The stance of welfare regimes vis à vis migratory currents is to treat them as yetanother source of pressure tending further to destabilize the already unstableenvironment of deregulation. Lowering standards of social protection gives noguarantee that the needs of new participant groups in the system will be satisfied. Morespecifically, though, as confirmed by empirical research, migratory groups are subjectto an ordering process by virtue of the informal practices of social services employeesand suffer exclusion from the benefits of the system, resulting in undermining of itsfunction as a mechanism of social incorporation and integration. Though state welfareemployees put forward a common position in respect of unimpeded functioning of thesystem’s mechanisms, here called the “line of defence”, this is being dismantled and iscollapsing under the pressure of the everyday practices in which they are implicated.These informal practices have a decisive effect on the character of social protectionsystem, in practice shaping the terms of access to it.