Hard Work for Love

While family migration has often been categorized as “unwanted” or “suffered” immigration in the immigration literature and by policy makers, a closer examination of entry and integration rules for family migrations in Norway suggests that this is only partly true. While the admission of family members is rooted in human rights norms and, in particular, the right to protection of family life, the actual practices of family-based admissions cannot be understood without an analysis of the selectivity of family migration policies according to economic criteria, which reveals that some family migrants are in fact more wanted than others, and that the income requirement allows Norwegian policy makers to select and reject family migrants.