ABSTRACT
Healthcare provision is a core part of the welfare state, although one that has been much neglected in studies of welfare systems despite Moran’s argument that healthcare provision should be central to people's understanding of welfare provision. Migration as a basic characteristic of humanity’s development is a truism which is evident in the longstanding and ongoing migration between European countries and the long-term presence of non-Europeans in Europe: marine and overland travel, trade and military voyages have meant that populations have always been diverse in the sense of including people who originated from far-off places. By the time global migration slowed down after the oil crisis of the early 1970s it became apparent that the demographic character of many industrial cities had changed. Towards the end of the twentieth century it was no longer possible to ignore the demographic effects of migration-driven diversity.
