ABSTRACT
Transnational migration continues to lead to new forms of formal and informal needs of social protection. This chapter highlights the main idea of transnational social protection as being a complex phenomenon that encompasses needs in terms of health, child-rearing and old-age income. It rests upon existing legal regulations in the migrants’ countries of origin and in the countries they live in. Especially in the Global North, migrants may be entitled to social benefits due to their contributions to the welfare system or to their residency status. In that vein, the European Union (EU) has established a legal system of transnational social protection, which is often perceived as a global best-practice example. Yet if we look at the life realities of EU citizens moving from one EU member state to another within this social protection scheme, we see the actual benefits and persistent problems. Globally, transnational social ties contribute greatly to informal social protection as legal bilateral (or transnational) social protection frameworks are minimal or non-existent. Questions of social inequalities thus need to be addressed on all scales – global, transnational and local.
