This project addresses one of the most important and controversial issues in the European Union today: the social rights of EU citizens from the new EU member states who move to live and/or work in the old member state. Empirically, the project traces the migration of regularly and irregularly employed migrants and their family members, and their social security rights between Poland and United Kingdom. It assesses what the social rights of mobile citizens are in policy and in practice; how mobile EU citizens experience, organise and manage their welfare transnationally; and what the consequences are, for the patterning of inequality among EU citizens. Conceptually, the project brings together work on transnational migration, and on the portability of social security rights across national borders, in order to develop a typology of transnational portability regimes. First, the project assesses the legal regulations and policy regime on social security rights. Second, it evaluates how mobile EU citizens practice portability, generating data from an original questionnaire survey. Third, the project reconstructs discourses of belonging which are incorporated into portability regulations, in order to determine how they shape individuals? access to social security. Fourth, it provides insights into individuals? inequality experiences resulting from limitations to portability, using strategies of qualitative research.

Every time we move our body, we use attention and body representation to interact with our environment. Patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), a disorder of severe chronic limb pain, show clear deficits in body representation. Results on possible deficits in spatial attention have been inconclusive, although spatial attention might play a key role in the underlying deficits in CRPS. Prior CRPS studies have investigated attention in isolation of body representation. I am convinced that attention deficits in CRPS are a prominent feature of the disorder, but are inextricably linked to the disturbed body representation. In this view, CRPS patients only show a spatial attention bias away from the affected side when the (impaired) body representation is activated. More specifically, attentional deficits are observed: (1) when stimuli are presented in the space surrounding the affected limb, or (2) when body-related stimuli are used. I will test these hypotheses using digitized tasks that are specific to the body-related bias, and eye-movement recordings that can reveal even the most subtle alteration of attention. Diminishing the attention bias in CRPS could potentially decrease pain. Understanding in which circumstances attention is disturbed is therefore a first step in the development of CRPS treatment.

Approaching EU enlargements as transnational events, this collaborative project examines transnational European welfare. It focuses on the portability of social security rights in the enlarged European Union; that is, the rights to health insurance and to unemployment, retirement and family-related benefits. The project involves a comparative analysis, which traces the migrations of regularly and irregularly employed migrants and their family members and the portability of their social security rights between four pairs of countries: Hungary-Austria, Bulgaria-Germany, Poland-United Kingdom and Estonia-Sweden. The main outcome will be a typology of transnational portability regimes derived from the comparative analysis of four research objectives for the respective pairs of countries. First, the project examines legal regulations on the portability of social security rights (WP 1: Document Analysis and Expert Interviews). Second, it analyses a variety of mobile EU citizens practices of portability, including limitations to portability they may involve (WP 2: Quantitative Survey). Third, the project reconstructs discourses of belonging incorporated into portability regulations to determine how they shape individuals access to social security (WP 3: Discourse Analysis). Fourth, it provides insights into individuals inequality experiences resulting from limitations to portability (WP 4: Qualitative In-Depth Interviews). Building on a transnational comparison of the four pairs of countries, the project then reconstructs variations in the portability of social security rights (WP 5: Integrated Analysis of Results and Comparison).

This innovative project adopts a holistic approach to understanding the dynamics of inequality across the life-course. We analyze how education, labor market and family choices interact to structure accumulated advantage and disadvantage over the life course. Using panel data from five EU countries for over 20 years and cutting-edge statistical methods, including multichannel sequence analysis, we take a comparative approach to exploring how cross-country economic and institutional differences affect inequality outcomes and life courses. Early adulthood is a crucial period of transition where people face multiple choices - about education, jobs, partnerships and childbearing – determining future life. We focus on key turning points, examine their interrelation and explore the cumulative impact on individual and group inequalities. Focusing on transitions during early adulthood, into education, jobs and family formation, we address the following project call themes: “Labor market and family trajectories and the growth of inequality,” “Early adult transitions into tertiary education, vocational training and economic activity” and “Early life influence and outcomes.” The research team of the PI, four CIs, postdoctoral fellows and PGR students will meet regularly and provides appropriate leadership, skills, and capacity building. Academic impact will be achieved by going beyond the state-of-the-art, the research producing new empirical findings and contributing to theory building. Potential for policy impact is high. We will establish early contact with key national and EU stakeholders and engage through meetings, the media, research briefings and social media.