Labour mobility in transnational Europe: between depletion, mitigation and citizenship entitlements harm

Abstract

This article examines how transnational labour mobility in uneven and combined Europe has emerged as a critical response to the problems of capitalist production and social reproduction. Analysing the interconnected mobilities of labour between Ukraine, Poland and the UK in the food production, care provision and housing construction sectors, the article examines how states benefit from lower unemployment and reduced labour shortages, employers profit from qualified and reliable workers, and households gain access to jobs and incomes. It argues that transnational labour mobility is constitutive of the inherently interdependent production–reproduction processes. In this constellation, transnational labour mobility becomes a form of mitigation of depletion through social reproduction. However, it further argues that such a mitigation strategy is unbalanced and unsustainable as its costs and benefits are unequally distributed, forestalling resource inflows that could attenuate outflows. Therefore, harms – in particular, the harm to citizenship entitlements – emerge despite labour mobility mitigating depletion.