Abstract
This article examines how moral double standards exist within migrant communities as socially embedded responses to structural asymmetries. Interviews conducted with 30 Glasgow-based asylum seekers and refugees saw four participants describe what can be interpreted as moral double standards. Rather than passively enduring exclusion, migrants develop moral distinctions to understand the disparities they observe. These moral double standards arise when similar experiences are judged differently depending on who is involved, reflecting internalized hierarchies based on nationality, legal status, visibility and perceived vulnerability. These judgements function as interpretive strategies shaped by policy signals, bureaucratic procedures and dominant narratives of deservingness, rather than being evidence of interpersonal hostility or individual failure. Migrants engage in competitive victimhood and express deprived group entitlement not to discredit others but to assert their own moral legitimacy in systems that distribute care and recognition unevenly. Foregrounding the moral logic behind comparisons, idealized accounts of migrant solidarity are challenged, and moral double standards as structurally induced responses to the selective allocation of value, legitimacy and care are reframed.
Migrant life in host societies is shaped not only by restrictive immigration policies or structural economic exclusion but also by the uneven ways in which migrants are seen, heard and morally acknowledged. While legal categories such as refugee or asylum seeker establish formal entitlements, public institutions and narratives often selectively distribute attention and care. Some migrants are fast-tracked through asylum processes, welcomed by charitable programmes and framed as ideal or deserving figures, often due to factors like nationality, religion or alignment with geopolitical interests. Others face prolonged delays, moral suspicion or complete disregard, even when their experiences of violence or displacement are no less severe. These disparities extend beyond administrative inconsistencies. They signal deeper moral hierarchies, criteria by which certain people are recognized as worthy of protection or sympathy and others are quietly disqualified. This article examines how these institutional asymmetries influence how migrants perceive and morally evaluate one another.
Specifically, the article examines the emergence of moral double standards, which occur when comparable behaviours, needs or suffering are judged differently depending on who is involved. These double standards do not emerge randomly or reflect cultural traits alone. Rather, they are structured responses to unequal conditions, particularly the kinds of selective recognition embedded in asylum procedures, welfare allocation and public discourse (Krueger et al., 2022; Verkuyten, 2018). When migrants observe that certain nationalities receive more favourable treatment, more media attention or more lenient assessments from state actors, these observations do not remain neutral. They become the basis for comparative moral judgements, used to interpret, rank and assess fellow migrants. In this way, structural asymmetries are not only experienced as frustration with the state but also mediated through interpersonal and intra-group moral evaluation.
At the heart of the moral double standards lie a set of psychological and socially shaped mechanisms that migrants draw upon to navigate their moral world. One example is the well-documented cognitive bias of ingroup favouritism, which is the tendency to evaluate individuals perceived as members of one’s respective group more favourably than those regarded as outsiders (Brewer, 1999; Tajfel & Turner, 2001). However, other mechanisms are more intricate and linked to migrants’ social standing. Competitive victimhood, for example, involves asserting the uniqueness or primacy of one’s suffering in a context where recognition is scarce (Noor et al., 2012). Similarly, entitlement narratives reflect the belief that one’s group deserves more support based on prior hardship or perceived moral standing (Campbell et al., 2004; Endevelt et al., 2020). Although these judgement modes are not necessarily classified as cognitive biases, they fulfil a comparable function. They facilitate the simplification of complex moral dilemmas by establishing comparison frameworks that migrants use to determine who merits care, attention or assistance. Such frameworks are influenced and activated by the uneven institutional contexts that migrants are compelled to navigate. The contexts consistently demonstrate that suffering is not uniformly recognized and that not all narratives are regarded as equally deserving of grief.
This article, therefore, presents a more nuanced and conflicted perspective. Migrants are portrayed as moral agents, interpreting asymmetries through their available moral frameworks: bias, comparison, entitlement and exclusion. These double standards should not be perceived as individual moral failings but as socially constructed responses to structural asymmetries. They constitute part of how migrants navigate invisibility, assert claims for recognition and challenge the perceived unfairness within the asylum system. By analysing these everyday moral double standards, the article enhances understanding of how asymmetries are experienced, interpreted and perpetuated within migrant communities themselves.
Moral double standards in intragroup relations
Moral double standards refer to the unequal evaluation of similar behaviours, experiences or needs, depending on who is being judged (Politi et al., 2025). This article follows Foschi’s (2000) foundational work in conceptualizing double standards as socially structured and status-contingent, where different moral expectations are applied to groups based on perceived social position. In the context of migration, this means that similar forms of suffering, effort or conduct are judged differently depending on a migrant’s nationality, mode of arrival, cultural proximity or visibility (Politi et al., 2025). These judgements emerge from the everyday comparisons migrants are compelled to make in settings marked by scarcity and asymmetry. Importantly, these judgements are not just imposed by institutions but are also enacted by migrants themselves as they navigate and internalize existing hierarchies. As migrants interpret the unequal treatment they observe in asylum procedures, housing allocations or humanitarian interventions, they replicate these hierarchies in how they see, describe and morally position one another.
Moral double standards are not simply deviations from a neutral moral code. They are tools for boundary-making for distinguishing who belongs, who is deserving and who threatens the integrity of shared suffering (Politi et al., 2025). In contexts where moral resources, such as empathy, visibility and support, are perceived as finite, these distinctions become crucial in determining how people position themselves in relation to others. They serve to manage uncertainty, assert comparative value and cope with the frustration of being overlooked. In this sense, moral evaluation becomes a practice through which structural inequalities are made emotionally and socially legible. Judgements about who is more genuine, more patient or more invisible allow migrants to rationalize the distribution of attention and to express underlying tensions generated by bureaucratic indifference or symbolic marginalization. As such, moral double standards take on a life of their own, circulating through narratives, assumptions and small acts of everyday differentiation.
One mechanism that shapes moral double standards is cognitive bias, particularly ingroup favouritism. Social identity theory demonstrates how individuals derive part of their self-concept from group membership, leading them to attribute greater moral worth, credibility or empathy to those they perceive as similar (Tajfel & Turner, 2001). In migration contexts, ingroup boundaries may be drawn along lines of nationality, religion, ethnicity or legal status (Bonjour & Chauvin, 2018; Verkuyten, 2018). These distinctions inform how migrants interpret the behaviours, struggles or intentions of others. Migrants may be more inclined to trust those who share their language or religious background, while viewing others with suspicion or doubt, even when circumstances are objectively similar. These cognitive tendencies can lead migrants to apply more generous moral standards to those within their perceived ingroup and more critical ones to others, especially when material resources or recognition are limited (Abrams et al., 2013; Koopmans & Orgad, 2020; Spears, 2021).
This cognitive bias is neither fixed nor uniformly applied. It is shaped and intensified by social conditions, especially by the structural asymmetries migrants observe in their environments (Brewer et al., 2013). When institutions repeatedly treat some groups more favourably, individuals begin to mirror those patterns in how they see each other. These external indicators, such as the promptness with which refugee status is granted, the extent of media coverage or the depiction of individuals as cooperative, inform the moral cues upon which migrants depend in their decision-making. As a result, cognitive bias becomes a conduit for reproducing institutional hierarchies at the interpersonal level. The boundary between migrants' experiences and their moral responses becomes blurred as they internalize and rearticulate the symbolic distinctions embedded in bureaucratic and social processes. Rather than operating independently of structural context, cognitive bias works through it, reinforcing what institutions have already signalled about who is valued and who is not.
Beyond cognitive mechanisms, moral double standards are also driven by socially conditioned strategies of moral positioning, particularly competitive victimhood and entitlement narratives. Competitive victimhood refers to the process by which individuals or groups frame their suffering as more serious, urgent or morally worthy than that of others (Bar-Tal et al., 2009; Noor et al., 2012). This is especially likely to occur in environments where resources such as public attention, social support and bureaucratic approval are scarce. In situations where institutional attention or public sympathy is scarce, migrants may feel compelled to differentiate their pain, emphasize the risks they took or diminish the experiences of others to be recognized. This comparison is not only strategic but also often a deeply emotional effort to establish oneself as visible and deserving in the face of long-term neglect or institutional indifference. Similarly, deprived group entitlement describes a belief that one’s group deserves more support due to historical marginalization or accumulated hardship (Endevelt et al., 2020). These assertions are not always explicitly articulated. They may manifest through subtle comparisons, emotional resentment or evaluations of who is exploiting the system and who is silently enduring hardship. Such narratives demonstrate efforts to reaffirm value and rectify symbolic exclusion, not solely by appealing to moral desert but also by positioning one’s group as consistently overlooked. Competitive victimhood and entitlement exemplify socially constructed modes of moral double standards that manifest in contexts of exclusion and scarcity. They serve to pursue recognition in environments where solidarity is often contested and moral worth is subject to debate rather than assumed.
At the centre of this framework is the recognition that structural asymmetries are not only experienced materially but also morally. Host country institutions create symbolic hierarchies by selectively recognizing some migrants while rendering others invisible (De Coninck, 2023). These hierarchies are shaped by policy decisions, media narratives and geopolitical alignments that determine who receives attention, sympathy or expedited procedural treatment. As a result, different groups become morally legible in various ways. Some are celebrated as model refugees, while others are treated as undeserving, deviant or expendable. These institutional designations do not remain confined to official discourse. They permeate the social relationships and judgements that migrants make among themselves.
Moral double standards within migrant communities cannot be fully understood without considering these broader asymmetries. They do not arise despite institutional inequality but instead stem from it. As migrants navigate differential treatment, their moral judgements serve as a means of sense-making, drawing upon both cognitive biases and social aspects to ascertain whose hardship holds greater significance and the reasons behind it. These moral double standards are neither incidental nor purely reactive. They are embedded in the everyday navigation of visibility, recognition and survival. These judgements are rarely individualistic. They reflect an effort to position oneself within a moral economy of worth, one that migrants shape and cannot control but must interpret and respond to in everyday life. In doing so, moral double standards become a social currency used to assert status, interpret inequality and determine the boundaries of empathy and solidarity in contexts marked by structural constraint.
Methodology
This article draws on data collected during qualitative PhD fieldwork conducted in Glasgow between June and September 2018. The study aimed to explore how asylum seekers and refugees 1 experience social protection within the UK’s restrictive welfare and immigration regimes. Although the initial research did not primarily focus on moral double standards, this theme emerged inductively from participants’ narratives during the semi-structured interviews. This article analyses those emergent accounts, highlighting how moral double standards became entangled with intra-community hierarchies, claims to legitimacy and experiences.
Glasgow provides a unique setting for such research. It has long been recognized as a diverse and multicultural city, shaped by multiple waves of migration (Ramachandran, 2025; Strang et al., 2018). Since the early 2000s, it has been a key site for refugee resettlement under the UK’s dispersal scheme and later through initiatives such as the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Programme. A network of local authorities, third-sector organizations and community-led initiatives has facilitated migrants’ access to housing, health services and social support (Mainwaring et al., 2020; Piacentini, 2015). However, these local efforts operate within the constraints of UK-wide immigration laws that limit access to employment and benefits for asylum seekers, producing a paradox of devolved inclusion and national exclusion (Mayblin, 2016). This duality between Scotland’s progressive rhetoric and the structural constraints of Westminster policy forms a critical backdrop for understanding the dynamics explored in this study.
Thirty migrants participated in the research through semi-structured interviews. They represented diverse ethnic, religious and national backgrounds, with a significant number from the Middle East and North Africa. This article focuses on four participants — Asim (Sudan), Mustafa (Iraq), Namazzi (Uganda) and Takudzwa (Zimbabwe) — whose narratives were particularly illustrative of the moral double standards under analysis. All individuals hold asylum seeker status. However, their durations of stay in the United Kingdom vary considerably, ranging from Takudzwa’s prolonged residence since 2000 to Mustafa’s more recent arrival in 2017. Takudzwa, originally from Zimbabwe and presently separated with one child, has endured one of the longest periods of uncertainty, having spent over 20 years in the UK, including 15 years in Glasgow. Conversely, Asim, a younger Sudanese gentleman in his late twenties, arrived more recently in 2015 and is childless. Namazzi, a Ugandan woman and mother of two, has resided in the UK since 2012 and in Glasgow since 2013, navigating the immigration system as both a migrant and a caregiver. These disparities reflect varying degrees of legal precariousness, integration and emotional burden, providing insight into the ways intersecting factors, such as nationality and duration within the system, shape perceptions of injustice, entitlement and moral judgement among asylum seekers. These participants provided reflective accounts of intra-community evaluations, entitlement claims and moral hierarchies.
Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling. Initial outreach took place at events such as Refugee Festival Week in Glasgow in 2018, where the researcher engaged with asylum seekers, refugees and staff from third-sector organizations and service providers. These connections facilitated referrals through community networks. Recruitment was further supported through Facebook, where bilingual posts (in Arabic and English) helped reach potential participants. While this approach may introduce sampling biases related to social network access or language, it allowed for the inclusion of a diverse range of nationalities, sexes and ages. It focused on encouraging participation from individuals with lived experience of navigating support systems. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, which allowed participants to guide the discussion and reflect on experiences in their own terms. Interviews typically lasted between 50 and 60 minutes, though some extended beyond an hour. They were conducted in locations chosen to ensure privacy and comfort, including public libraries and community centres. Interviews were audio-recorded with consent and transcribed verbatim. Professional interpreters fluent in Arabic and Farsi assisted when needed, ensuring accuracy in both translation and cultural nuance. Their role was limited to interpretation and translation duties, with strict confidentiality maintained to protect the trust and confidence of participants.
This article employs a reflective thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) within an interpretivist paradigm. The analysis began with repeated readings of the transcripts to familiarize the researcher with the data. Initial open coding was used to identify references to perceptions of legitimacy, belonging, moral worth and intra-group judgements. These codes were then refined into broader themes, such as competitive victimhood and entitlement narratives. The final stage involved examining how these themes interacted with participants’ social locations, legal statuses and identities, enabling a layered understanding of how moral double standards were constructed and deployed.
The research received ethical approval from the Edge Hill University’s Research Ethics Committee. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, with information sheets and consent forms available in both English and translated versions. Where literacy or cultural considerations made written consent inappropriate, verbal consent was accepted, in line with established ethical guidelines for research with vulnerable populations (Mackenzie et al., 2007). Anonymity was preserved by using pseudonyms, and all personal details were removed during transcription.
The researcher’s positionality, as a migrant himself, shaped both access and interpretation. Shared experiences of migration and adaptation facilitated rapport and empathy, allowing some participants to speak candidly about sensitive issues. However, the researcher also occupied a liminal position, being neither a full insider nor entirely external to the communities under study. Some participants perceived him as aligned with their experience, while others questioned his role as a researcher or assumed he was an asylum seeker. In at least one instance, participants expressed a preference for a white British researcher, whom they believed would be more influential or capable of effecting change. Sex-based dynamics also influenced interactions, with female participants showing varying comfort levels depending on the researcher’s sex. These moments were navigated with attentiveness, and the researcher reflected regularly on how sex-based and racialized perceptions of authority shaped the interview dynamics. Instead of perceiving these dynamics as constraints, they were regarded as sources of analytical insight, revealing how power, legitimacy and trust are negotiated not only within migrant communities but also within the research encounter itself.
Experiencing and enacting moral double standards
This section examines how migrants enact, narrate and emotionally process moral double standards. Participants’ accounts reveal that these evaluations are not random or malicious but reflect structured efforts to interpret asymmetries, especially in environments where institutional hierarchies based on nationality, visibility and perceived vulnerability shape access to support. Migrants absorb these asymmetries and rearticulate them through moral distinctions, often by comparing who suffers more, who is seen and who is being overlooked. The quotes below illustrate how moral double standards become embedded in the social fabric of migrant communities, not simply as judgements but as ways of coping, positioning and making sense of constrained moral economies.
Selective recognition and the perception of uneven value
Takudzwa, an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe, offered an example of how moral double standards emerge through everyday reflections on institutional treatment: Why are they not accepting my application? Why? We came together, and we are here for the same reason. Also, I am here longer than some others, but they got everything now. . . I know some people are not real refugees; they just want benefits. It makes me angry and sad because I escaped horrors, but now fighting to prove more. . . Why is it that some people are treated like they are real victims? They get sympathy, house, fast decisions, while the rest of us are ignored or doubted?
Takudzwa captures a common frustration among asylum seekers as it reflects the feeling that institutional processes do not just decide legal status but also implicitly determine their moral worth. Takudzwa illustrates a sense of moral double standards, wherein similar experiences of displacement lead to vastly different outcomes, with some individuals receiving rapid recognition and support. In contrast, others are left in prolonged uncertainty. He has been waiting for more than 10 years for his asylum claim to be accepted. This perceived inequality is not interpreted as a neutral bureaucratic discrepancy but as a judgement on one’s moral legitimacy. Moral evaluations are deeply embedded in migration governance, often becoming more powerful than the legal categories themselves (Fassin, 2009; Fassin & Kobelisky, 2012). In Takudzwa’s eyes, to be denied recognition is not simply to wait longer but rather to be cast as less deserving, as someone whose suffering is either invisible or questioned. This reflects the way asylum systems produce not only legal classifications but also moral hierarchies (Fassin, 2012; Ticktin, 2011).
This experience of unequal treatment is not merely internalized as personal disappointment. It is interpreted in light of the visible progress of others. Takudzwa’s comparison with fellow asylum seekers, some of whom have already been granted housing or legal status, reveals how recognition is measured relationally. The presence of seemingly faster, more favourable outcomes for others intensifies feelings of injustice and moral injury. Migrants often develop a moralized reading of their surroundings, interpreting procedural opacity and arbitrary timelines through the lens of fairness and desert (Rotter, 2016). In this context, moral double standards are not an abstract notion but a lived reality, experienced in daily encounters with systems that seem to treat similar people differently. This relational perception fuels the sense that asylum procedures are not only inconsistent but fundamentally unfair in how they distribute recognition and care (Khosravi, 2011).
It is precisely within these moral landscapes that competitive victimhood begins to take form. Takudzwa’s claim that some people are not genuine refugees is not simply a dismissal of others but an attempt to protect his own moral standing in a system that demands constant proof of suffering. Competitive victimhood, as Noor et al. (2012) refer to, is the struggle to establish one’s suffering as more authentic or deserving than that of others in contexts marked by limited recognition or resources. In this case, the unequal distribution of institutional support creates a situation where individuals must not only endure hardship but also compete symbolically for moral legitimacy. Takudzwa reveals how this competition is not always rooted in hostility toward others but in the structural pressure to be seen and validated. In turn, this imperative produces comparisons and judgements, as individuals attempt to secure their position within an exclusionary framework.
The emotional toll of this process is profound. Migrants must navigate both the material hardship of displacement and the psychological burden of feeling morally displaced. Watching others receive public sympathy, state recognition or material support while one’s case is ignored or delayed fosters a deep sense of alienation. In these moments, comparisons arise not simply out of resentment but from a need to make sense of a problematic system that seems to reward some while overlooking others arbitrarily. This is the emotional mechanism of competitive victimhood, a coping strategy rooted in the human desire for justice, legitimacy and visibility (Noor et al., 2012). What appears on the surface as interpersonal judgement is, in fact, a response to structural misrecognition and the exhaustion of constantly having to prove one’s worth in an indifferent system.
Comparative suffering and the hierarchy of pain
Asim, an asylum seeker from Sudan, offered a similarly layered account of perceived injustice: There are differences in dealing with people. Sometimes, a man or person that comes here, and he has the same circumstances as me, but he gets things before me, and I have to wait. This long time of waiting, anything you applied for, this is very bad. It feels like they favour some people and ignore others on purpose. I start to hate seeing others get help when I’m stuck. It’s unfair, and it makes me angry. Nowadays, it’s always Syrians first. They have resettlement visa, charity donations, even the media telling their story. When I say I’m from Sudan, people just move on. Why does their war deserve more help? I risked my life crossing the sea, hiding in trucks, walking for weeks. They came on a plane with a visa. But they get all the benefits. Tell me, who really paid the price for freedom?
Asim’s reflection highlights how systemic structures uphold moral double standards through inconsistent treatment of individuals. While official procedures may appear impartial, they often yield outcomes that raise moral concerns. Asim’s perception of injustice arises from observing others receiving immediate assistance, compassionate attention or public acknowledgement, while he endures extended periods of uncertainty. This disparity extends beyond mere administrative delays, representing an implicit valuation of whose lives and suffering are regarded as more significant. Such perceptions foster moral double standards, whereby individuals are evaluated not solely according to legal standards but also through unspoken, inequitable moral criteria. The issue extends beyond material resources, reflecting how institutional responses construct layered notions of worth within migrant communities.
This perception creates profound emotional and existential tension. Asim perceives the unjust system not merely as an unfair construct but as a rejection of his legitimacy. This reaction reflects how migrants utilize personal comparison to interpret institutional opacity. In an environment where visibility, support and recognition are seemingly distributed unequally, it becomes necessary to measure oneself against those perceived to be progressing. This comparative logic does not simply originate from entitlement or competitiveness. Instead, it derives from a desire to regain interpretive control over one's experience. When external systems fail to acknowledge the significance of an individual’s journey, individuals often turn inward, developing moral counter-narratives that reaffirm their worth. In this context, comparative suffering serves as a form of resistance against perceived misrecognition, restoring coherence within a system that appears to grant recognition selectively and unequally.
Asim’s narrative demonstrates how competitive victimhood is rooted in symbolic hierarchies. His perception of being overlooked extends beyond tangible resources, such as housing or legal assistance, to include symbolic recognition: the recognition of moral deservingness. The notion that Syrian suffering is more lamentable generates a perceived moral imbalance, which fosters resentment and comparative judgement. The feeling of deprived group entitlement (Endevelt et al., 2020) exacerbates this grievance, asserting that his own, risk-intensive journey warrants at least equal treatment. His account elucidates how policies such as the Syrian resettlement scheme can unintentionally establish intra-migrant hierarchies, thereby fostering distrust among groups that might otherwise find solidarity through shared experiences of displacement. Public narratives and institutional policies collaboratively construct these internal boundaries, whereby some migrant experiences are valued while others are rendered invisible (Lafleur & Mescoli, 2018; Lamont & Molnár, 2002).
Within this moral terrain, competitive victimhood emerges as a significant coping strategy. Asim’s emphasis on his hardship concerning others is not an effort to discredit their suffering but a way to push back against the erasure of his own. Competitive victimhood does not imply a denial of others’ pain. Instead, it reflects the pressure to make one’s pain visible in a context where moral attention is scarce and asymmetrically allocated. This dynamic often emerges in environments where institutional systems have limited capacity or willingness to acknowledge multiple forms of suffering equally (De Coninck, 2023). Asim’s account illustrates how, in the absence of consistent recognition, displaced individuals may feel compelled to construct hierarchies of trauma as a means of justifying their presence, asserting their deservingness and preserving their sense of dignity. The emotional intensity behind these comparisons is not incidental. It reflects the structural conditions that force people to articulate moral claims in competitive terms.
The implications of these dynamics are extensive. Asylum seekers such as Asim are not merely responding to personal delays or unmet expectations. Instead, they are addressing broader patterns of symbolic exclusion. When public narratives, humanitarian responses or resettlement frameworks appear to prioritize certain experiences while marginalizing others, individuals who are excluded begin to question the foundational principles of those distinctions. In doing so, they formulate moral arguments that challenge the legitimacy of prevailing narratives and reveal the arbitrariness of institutional compassion. These arguments may emphasize endurance, risk or sacrifice, not as a rejection of others’ experiences but as a reaffirmation of their right to recognition. Through these comparisons, migrants aim to re-engage in a moral discourse from which they feel excluded. Thus, competitive victimhood is not merely about determining who endured more suffering. It is about reclaiming one’s position within a system that distributes care and moral visibility unevenly.
Entitlement narratives and the moral weight of waiting
Namazzi, an asylum seeker from Uganda who had been waiting in the asylum system for more than 10 years, reflected this dynamic.
We are the ones still stuck in the system, waiting without answers, living in shared houses with no money or rights. Refugees already got their papers, their houses, their freedom. They are getting new house, council money and buying cars. But us, the asylum seekers, who are still suffering every day. We should be the priority now, we are still in crisis, but no one sees us.
Namazzi emphasizes that prolonged exclusion from status and rights is perceived not solely as an institutional delay but as a profound moral injustice. Her reflections demonstrate how the process of waiting constitutes a form of moral labour, a slow, often unseen form of suffering that accumulates moral significance over time. By comparing her stagnant condition with the progress of others, she challenges the system's morals. She questions why those with legal protection are considered more deserving. Meanwhile, others face daily insecurity. As Griffiths (2017) observes, time is not neutral within the context of asylum. It is politicized, moralized and transformed into a measure of entitlement. For Namazzi, enduring the wait is not just a personal burden but also a claim for recognition.
The moral double standard evident in this context is both temporal and legal. It pertains not only to the allocation of support but also to the timing and conditions under which it is provided. Individuals who have concluded the asylum process, particularly those granted refugee status, are perceived as receiving both symbolic and material benefits that were previously inaccessible to many. Conversely, those remaining in the process perceive this shift as a lessening of moral recognition. Acknowledgement of the needs of one group simultaneously results in the paradoxical erasure of another. The distribution of care and attention appears to follow a logical framework that favours the resolved over the unresolved, the visible over the waiting. Consequently, there is a sense of moral displacement, marked by neglect of ongoing suffering.
Her account brings into focus a different form of deprived group entitlement: not between national groups but between legal statuses. Namazzi’s argument challenges the moral prioritization of those who have made it through the asylum system, drawing attention to the erasure of those still in legal limbo. Like others, her frustration is not solely economic, but it is moral. She appeals to the urgency of her continued suffering, implicitly challenging the moral economy that ranks past suffering as more legitimate than ongoing crisis. This struggle for visibility exemplifies how moral double standards arise from unequal access to recognition, rather than solely from hostility (Campbell et al., 2004; Endevelt et al., 2020). The moral bias and hierarchy are co-produced by bureaucratic timelines and public narratives that reward the visible and the concluded, while those in limbo remain morally marginalized.
Namazzi's distinctions between those who have moved on and those who stay are driven not by resentment but by the structural need to reaffirm value in a system where worth is unevenly and unpredictably distributed. This situation is not intended to undermine others but to reclaim moral space within an institutional environment that suppresses long-term suffering. The legal classification of asylum seekers transforms from merely a status of exclusion to a moral deficiency in the perspective of a system that has already shifted its focus. In this context, waiting is not simply a passage of time. It represents a condition that is politically and morally complex, requiring acknowledgement yet seldom receiving it.
Visibility, suffering and moral injustice
Mustafa, an asylum seeker from Iraq, also reflected on the perceived disconnect between suffering and support: There are refugees from like Syria getting everything, but I am still waiting for my refugee status. We are from the same place [Syria is next-door neighbour to Iraq]. You know what I mean. We faced the war. Why are they getting super treatment, and I am not? I suffered more because I came through different countries on a boat and behind lorries, but they just came by plane. They have a good house. They can work, study and do whatever they want. But me, I cannot work, suffer in the horrible asylum house, and have no money, and no education. . . This is not good. Sometimes I feel like if your suffering is in the media, people care; if not, then nobody cares. But my journey was more dangerous, and I still don’t get the same help.
Mustafa articulates the emotional and moral significance of exclusion. His frustration extends beyond administrative delays or living conditions. It serves as a critique of what appears to be a profoundly unjust system of recognition. The hardship endured is exacerbated by the perception that it has gone unnoticed, whereas the suffering of others has been acknowledged and rewarded. Central to this perception is a moral double standard, where the belief is that comparable or even greater hardships are regarded as less deserving solely because they have not been publicly represented or institutionally recognized. Mustafa’s sense of injustice exemplifies how asylum seekers are evaluated not only by their legal status but also by the visibility of their suffering.
This analysis emphasizes the significance of symbolic visibility in shaping moral hierarchies within asylum systems. As scholars have observed, suffering must often be mediated through media, policy discourse or institutional narratives to be recognized as legitimate (Chouliaraki, 2013; Fassin, 2009, 2012). Mustafa does not deny that others deserve care. Instead, he challenges the conditions under which care is allocated. His focus on the hazards of his journey and the ongoing precarity of his life serves to reaffirm his moral standing in the face of perceived neglect. In this context, endurance and risk become the moral foundations for asserting visibility and support.
Mustafa exemplifies a pronounced instance of moral double standards. While both Syrian and Iraqi refugees have fled violence, only the suffering of one group is perceived to elicit widespread compassion. This perceived inconsistency pertains not only to policy but also to moral perception and symbolic authority. Mustafa portrays his hardship as more deserving precisely due to its invisibility and extremity, thereby symbolizing the concept of competitive victimhood (Noor et al., 2012). Furthermore, his narrative resonates with deprived group entitlement (Endevelt et al., 2020), asserting that the severity and danger of his journey warrant greater acknowledgement and institutional support. The distinction between the arrival routes of flights, boats and lorries serves as a metaphor for the criteria by which individuals are recognized, heard and mourned. His narrative illustrates how suffering is not treated equally unless it fits familiar and publicly accepted images of victimhood (De Coninck, 2023). As a result, individuals are not judged solely by what they have endured but by how well their experiences align with the kinds of stories that institutions, the media and the public are willing to acknowledge and respond to.
This struggle for recognition is not rooted in resentment toward others but in the psychological and moral strain of being rendered invisible. Mustafa does not aim to undermine others’ legitimacy but to challenge the selective moral frameworks through which suffering is acknowledged. His comparison emerges from a need to make sense of exclusion, an effort to reclaim moral presence in a system that too often conflates visibility with worth. The moral double standard that he identifies is not simply an interpersonal grievance but a structural phenomenon produced by institutional practices and public narratives that reward the visible and the familiar while overlooking the obscure and ongoing.
Discussion
This article investigates the emergence and dissemination of moral double standards within migrant communities as they navigate asylum and welfare systems. The analysis illustrates that these standards are not anomalies or moral inconsistencies but are socially structured responses to external hierarchies. Migrants' judgements regarding who merits support, attention or sympathy are profoundly rooted in their lived experiences of inequality, uncertainty and exclusion (Mayblin, 2019a, 2019b; Ticktin, 2011). In this context, moral double standards pertain to differential judgements of similar experiences based on the individual experiencing them, rather than the experience itself. These double standards develop in an environment where legal classifications, policy frameworks and public discourse consistently categorize some groups as vulnerable and deserving while portraying others as suspect, burdensome or invisible (Bonjour & Chauvin, 2018; De Coninck, 2023). Over time, migrants internalize these cues through resettlement programmes, housing policies, media representations and community rumours (Ticktin, 2011). In attempting to interpret their marginalization, they begin to morally differentiate between peers in ways that mirror the institutional logics they encounter. Rather than reflecting personal prejudice, such judgements constitute situated efforts to morally interpret structural asymmetries that otherwise remain opaque and emotionally destabilizing.
The findings indicate that migrants do not merely endure institutional asymmetries. They observe, interpret and internalize these in moral terms. Perceptions regarding who receives expedited protection, superior housing or greater media sympathy are not regarded as neutral bureaucratic outcomes. Instead, these perceptions are understood as value judgements, serving as signals that some individuals are more credible, more worthy of recognition or more aligned with dominant norms of suffering and civility (Chouliaraki, 2013). These interpretations are subsequently enacted within peer relationships through interpersonal comparisons. Participants evaluated others within the system by referencing patterns they had consistently observed, such as nationality, duration of the journey, mode of arrival or rate of progress. In this process, moral double standards arise as practices of sense-making. Individuals assess the same hardship differently depending on who is experiencing it. Although these judgements are often made with reluctance, and sometimes with difficulty, they fulfil a necessary function by helping participants situate themselves within a moral landscape perceived as unpredictable and unjust. As Lamont and Molnár (2002) argue, symbolic boundaries serve as tools that individuals use to restore order within uncertain social environments. In this context, they serve as mechanisms through which migrants navigate feelings of being left behind, bypassed or morally misclassified. These boundaries enable individuals to ascribe meaning to systems that might otherwise lack coherence or clarity.
A central dynamic influencing these findings is what Foschi (2000) describes as status-contingent moral evaluation. Migrants do not assess others in isolation from context, rather, they do so through a framework of perceived status and deservingness shaped by policy signals, public narratives and personal observations. In migration contexts, these status cues are embedded in expedited decisions, selective resettlement and the legitimizing influence of media storytelling (Anderson, 2013; Holmes & Castañeda, 2016). Once these patterns become recognizable, they acquire moral significance. Participants began to question not only who succeeded but also whether that success was deserved. At these moments, migrants perpetuate moral hierarchies they did not establish. Nonetheless, their motivation is not to dominate others but to understand why they themselves remain unnoticed. The moral double standard, therefore, functions as a form of interpretive resistance and becomes a means of restoring equilibrium in a system that has disrupted expectations of fairness and transparency (Campbell et al., 2004). This status-based moral double standard provides the foundation for evaluating other modes of differentiation.
The tendency to compare levels of hardship became most conspicuous in narratives centred around suffering. For instance, when participants contrasted perilous and lengthy journeys with others’ seemingly easier routes, they were not merely recounting biographical details. They were positioning themselves within a hierarchy of moral legitimacy. Assertions concerning risk, sacrifice or exhaustion were not impartial. They constituted claims to moral worth in a domain where institutional validation was inconsistent and frequently elusive. This affirms what Noor et al. (2012) described as competitive victimhood: a pattern whereby groups elevate their suffering to garner attention or compensation. Within the context of this study, such comparisons did not embody a zero-sum logic of sympathy but rather a profound frustration with the arbitrariness of recognition. When public narratives or policy frameworks emphasize certain groups and routes over others, those who are excluded often respond not by directly contesting the system but by re-narrating their own experiences as morally superior (Fassin, 2009; Ticktin, 2011). Although these comparisons may challenge communal bonds, they serve as essential strategies for reclaiming dignity in spaces where it has been denied.
A related form of moral distinction emerged within narratives centred on the theme of waiting. Participants who had remained within the asylum system for extended periods frequently utilized the duration itself as a moral resource. Their experience of stagnation served as a means of asserting priority over newcomers, who were perceived to benefit promptly from housing, documentation or welfare support (Griffiths, 2017; Rotter, 2016). For long-term asylum applicants, waiting is more than just an administrative inconvenience. It functions as an indicator of endurance, frustration and unacknowledged struggle. The resultant moral double standard does not target others out of malice. Rather, it reflects the perceived injustice of witnessing those who have waited less, suffered less or demonstrated less being rewarded sooner. This sentiment echoes Endevelt et al.’s (2020) account of deprived group entitlement, wherein prolonged marginalization engenders moral claims rooted not in a sense of imagined superiority but in lived experiences of injustice (Brun, 2015; Campbell et al., 2004).
Visibility, particularly within the media or in public discourse, assumes a vital role in shaping participants' establishment of moral double standards. Narratives that receive institutional and media amplification often become synonymous with legitimacy (Lafleur & Mescoli, 2018). Participants whose experiences are not reflected in dominant narratives frequently encounter not only frustration but also moral alienation. The absence of recognition is perceived as symbolic erasure: if no one recounts an individual's story, it may imply that their suffering is inconsequential (Fassin, 2012). In this context, moral double standards emerge not solely from comparisons of hardship or duration but from questions regarding who is narratable and who is not. Migrants interpret institutional recognition of others as evidence of selective moral inclusion. Their response is not an act of rejecting empathy but rather a defensive stance against symbolic erasure.
The article demonstrates that these moral double standards are not merely indicative of fragmentation. Rather, they are responses to the pre-existing fragmentation imposed by the state. Migrants do not typically develop these standards due to interpersonal conflicts or cultural differences. Instead, they formulate them to comprehend why similar experiences lead to unequal treatment. In doing so, they reconstruct the very moral hierarchies to which they have been subjected, but at a level where they can influence peer judgement, informal assessment and moral comparison. These practices are profoundly influenced by the structural conditions from which they originate. However, they also influence the way migrants interact with one another in daily life. Rather than perceiving these judgements as indicators of moral failure, they should be regarded as contextual responses to systems that withhold explanation, comparison and care.
Moral double standards are not just top-down impositions. They circulate horizontally, shaping peer relationships in subtle but consequential ways. In environments where recognition must be justified and legitimacy constantly proven, migrants adopt moral frameworks that are simultaneously shaped by and resistant to structural inequality. Recognizing this moral dimension does not diminish the structural critique but sharpens it. It demonstrates how asymmetries are not only experienced but also explained, not just endured but interpreted, through relational acts of moral judgement. In this way, morality becomes both a tool of navigation and a means of resistance.
Conclusion
This article posits that moral double standards among migrants are not mere personal contradictions or moral inconsistencies but are socially embedded responses to underlying structural inequalities. In systems dealing with asylum and welfare, where recognition, resources and legitimacy are unevenly allocated, migrants formulate moral distinctions to interpret the disparities they observe and endure. Such judgements are influenced by legal classifications, bureaucratic procedures and public narratives that designate who is deemed deserving of care, urgency or support. Migrants internalize these distinctions through expedited procedures, resettlement programmes, media representations and peer comparisons, and project them onto others by evaluating factors such as mode of arrival, rate of progress or perceived vulnerability. These moral distinctions often function to reaffirm order within systems where notions of fairness seem arbitrary. Instead of fostering solidarity, shared marginalization can lead to competitive moral evaluations, particularly when individuals experience uncertainty regarding their own status. In this framework, moral double standards serve as tools for interpretation: not as expressions of hostility but as mechanisms for morally positioning oneself within a system that withholds acknowledgement and coherence.
Understanding moral double standards as interpretive strategies rather than interpersonal failures reveals their central role in how inequality is experienced, justified and emotionally processed. These are not marginal or aberrant behaviours. Instead, they are responses structurally shaped by ongoing uncertainty, exclusion and moral ambiguity. Occasionally, they manifest through cognitive biases, as individuals interpret institutional neglect via personal comparison, often overestimating others’ advantages to rationalize their stagnation. At other times, migrants engage in competitive victimhood (Noor et al., 2012), asserting that their suffering is either more authentic or more severe, not to discredit others but to re-establish their moral legitimacy within a system that offers recognition unevenly. Claims rooted in deprived group entitlement (Endevelt et al., 2020) exemplify the belief that those who have waited longest or endured the most merit prioritization, not out of arrogance but as compensation for being overlooked. These findings allow us to reframe migrants not simply as passive recipients of systemic exclusion but as active moral agents embedded in complex social fields shaped by both solidarity and stratification. Their moral evaluations do not occur in isolation but within their networks where legitimacy, recognition and deservingness are continuously negotiated. These internal moral dynamics reflect broader social hierarchies while also offering a means of asserting presence and agency in a system that too often renders them invisible.
These dynamics carry important implications for policy and practice. Interventions must avoid treating migrant communities as homogenous blocs and instead recognize the internal stratifications that shape experiences of belonging, value and fairness (Khosravi, 2011). Migrants are differentiated along lines of class, ethnicity, religion, legal status and cultural capital, which significantly influence how moral judgements are made and received. Programmes aimed at fostering inclusion must be sensitive to these dynamics, integrating intercultural dialogue, equitable resource distribution and mechanisms to prevent symbolic hierarchies from being reinforced. However, this cannot stop at interpersonal engagement. As this article has shown, moral double standards are not only products of social interaction. They are shaped by broader institutional frameworks that reward some groups while neglecting others. As De Coninck (2023) notes, policies often reinforce inequality by selectively displaying compassion to those perceived as more deserving, whether due to national origin, integration potential or political salience. To address these stratifications, policy must be guided by principles of structural equity, ensuring that recognition, protection and support are distributed fairly both across and within migrant populations (Bonjour & Chauvin, 2018; Mayblin, 2019a, 2019b). This requires a dual strategy: fostering interpersonal understanding while reforming the structural conditions that compel migrants to compete for moral legitimacy in the first place (Endevelt et al., 2020).
This study, although based on a limited and specific sample, offers valuable insights into the emergence of moral double standards within displacement and exclusion contexts. Future research should investigate how moral double standards develop across diverse national, legal and cultural environments, as well as how they evolve over time in response to shifts in migrants' legal statuses, community dynamics and visibility. Intersectional identities, such as sex and socio-economic background, may introduce additional complexities to moral hierarchies, necessitating careful analysis. A comprehensive understanding of these processes is essential for formulating policies that equitably allocate resources and address migrants' moral self-perceptions and perceptions of others. It is crucial to acknowledge that moral double standards are not distortions but instead represent how individuals interpret asymmetries. Acknowledging this is imperative for developing more just, inclusive and morally meaningful responses to migration.