Whether and under which conditions immigrants should be admitted and obtain access to employment and social security is an issue of continuously high political salience across the advanced democracies. Unions and employers, as traditionally influential actors in immigration and social policymaking, have important roles to play in this area, but their exact preferences, strategies and behaviour are theoretically difficult to determine and are still only partly understood. This article outlines a series of research problems regarding the roles of social partners in the social and economic integration of immigrants and discusses how the articles contained in this special issue address these problems.

是否以及在何种情况下应接纳移民并获得就业和社会保障，这是整个先进民主国家持续不断的政治关注的问题。工会和雇主，作为传统上在移民和社会政策制定中具有影响力的参与者，在这一领域可发挥重要作用，但从理论上很难确定其确切的偏好，策略和行为，并且仍然只能得到部分理解。本文概述了有关社会伙伴在移民的社会和经济融合中的作用的一系列研究问题，并讨论了本期特刊中的文章如何解决这些问题。