Welcome to the website for the Marie Curie funded research, run by a team based at the University of Stirling, alongside colleagues at University of Birmingham and the Trussell Trust.
Financial insecurity at end of life for people on work-related visas
Watch a short video: click on the link here to hear about the study, described by project lead Prof Liz Forbat.
Why are we doing this study?
Terminal illness poses substantial financial risks to individuals and families. For people in the UK on work-dependent visas, the impact of changed work practices due to illness (changed/reduced hours, or terminating work) is extraordinarily disproportionate. This creates a dilemma of working while unwell, potentially violating visa requirements, or moving country/deportation.
The group we focus on in this proposal is deeply hidden behind multiple layers of inequity and superficial
privileges: right to health care, and social/cultural capital in accessing health care, racialised and classed experiences of receiving health care, and the precarity of life and employment on a work visa, while diagnosed with (or supporting a relative with) a life-limiting illness.
What are the study aims?
We want to understand financial precarity including all the complexities of anxiety, legalities, cultural differences in confidence/ trust in authorities, language issues, isolation, and supports.
What will we do?
We are using two different approaches:
(i) reviews of policy, the media and published research
(ii) interviews with people on work-related visas with a terminal illness, professional supporters (e.g. citizens’ advice volunteers and health/social care practitioners, immigration lawyers), and policy staff (employees or former employees of the Home Office or local/national governments). We will be recruiting to these interviews around November 2023 – please check the Information Sheets tab for more information.
What difference will it make?
We will inform and change public and policy discourse around financial precarity for people in the UK on employment visas. These stories will seek to adjust the discourse around migrants on employment
visas and provide policy-makers much needed evidence and insights