A Feminist Political Economy Approach to the Free Movement of People in the EU

This article examines debates over free movement of people in the EU after Brexit from a feminist political economy perspective. A consensus is emerging across left and right-leaning observers that Brexit, and populist turns in many European states linked to the issue of immigration, that states must control the movement of people across borders more tightly. Much of this debate in the EU context is framed with an implicit conception of male migrant workers (the ubiquitous ‘Polish plumber’) posing a real or perceived threat to a native male working class. This dominant discourse overlooks crucial intersections of gender, class and cross-national inequalities in European integration processes. The paper will analyse free movement of people within the EU and its relationship to the feminization of work, focusing on debates over the recent landmark European Court of Justice cases. These cases, such as Dano and Alimonovic, ruled in favour of restricting access of EU citizens (in this case women in non-traditional work) to welfare benefits in other EU states. The article concludes by offering a more inclusive ontology that opens possibilities for a politically sustainable right to free movement, both within the EU and across global borders.