Immigrant Welfare Worlds and Integration: Nicaraguan Immigrants’ Access to Costa Rican Social Policy

• In Event: Integration and the State in the Americas

Abstract

Costa Rica has an extensive social policy regime, and the state provides social services to a large sector of the population, including the middle class and the non-salaried population. However, migration adds another dimension to the question of integration. Indeed, social services play a central role in the economic and social incorporation of immigrants, and become a political exercise that define the institutional base of citizenship rights, which articulates the principle mechanisms of integration and segregation within societies. This paper analyses the ways in which different groups of Nicaraguan immigrants access Costa Rica's social policy regime and how they take into account (or not) social policy in their welfare strategies.

Author

• Koen Voorend, Universidad de Costa Rica