ABSTRACT
Reducing costs of international labour migration has become central to the global agenda; however, so far a systematic engagement with the additional costs borne by migrants for working abroad is lacking. In this chapter, we propose the migrant premium as the conceptual framework, explain its analytical purchase and elaborate on how the chapters of this edited collection explore the various premium costs. So far studies on costs of labour migration have largely focused on up-front financial costs. In contrast hereto, we propose to investigate through the migrant premium all additional costs for international (compared to national) labour throughout the migration cycle. The disparity of costs between national and international workers is calculated as the sum of a) up-front costs for recruitment, but also b) differentials in wage, working and social conditions in the destination countries, as well as c) return costs. Our conceptual framework, the migrant premium, illuminates the core actor, the migrants, their journeys, premium costs and burdens that they encounter in countries of origin, transit and destination, setting the stage for the pursuant analysis in the following chapters.
