This special issue is guest-edited by Anna Amelina from Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main and Andreas Vasilache from Bielefeld University. The purpose of this special issue is to propose a new perspective on inequality and migration in Europe. It consists of six contributions, all of which are concerned with the question of how new patterns of migration and mobility that have emerged since the EU enlargement are interlinked with the transformation of social inequalities. To this aim, social inequalities are defined as hierarchies in wealth, power and knowledge which result in unequally distributed life chances and living conditions.