Home Office research report on why asylum seekers come to the UK - the pull factors
Social networks often play an important role in shaping migrant decision-making and movements (p20) Where migrants can exert a degree of agency over their destination choice, social networks often play an important role in shaping their journeys. These networks are usually understood to comprise friends and family members, community organisations and intermediaries. Welfare policies and labour market access have little impact on migrant decision making (p24) Economic rights do not act as a pull factor for asylum seekers. A review of the relationship between Right to Work and numbers of asylum applications concluded that no study reported a long-term correlation between labour market access and destination choice. Very few migrants have any experience of a welfare state such as exists in the UK and imagine that they will be able to (if not expected to) work and support themselves upon arrival. Does grant rate ac...