Chapter 4 marks the beginning of the study’s first analytical component, which investigates long‑term patterns in the governance of labor immigration to low‑skilled occupations (LILSO). It operationalizes the overarching research questions by developing two distinct but interrelated outcome sets: the Liberal Numbers Model (LIBNUM) and the Liberal Rights Model (LIBRIGHTS). These models are based on Ruhs’s “numbers vs. rights” hypothesis, which posits a trade-off between the volume of admitted migrant workers and the rights they are granted. The chapter critically reassesses this conjecture through a configurational framework, examining whether numerical openness and rights‑openness indeed constitute mutually exclusive governance types in democratic migration regimes. The Liberal Numbers Model captures regulatory contexts that admit comparatively high shares of migrant workers into low‑skilled jobs. Its necessary condition is a High Numbers subset, complemented by two sufficient subsets: General Openness toward labor migration in general, and a Comprehensive Liberalization Trend reflecting the frequency and scope of LILSO‑specific policy relaxations from 1990 to 2019. Analogously, the Liberal Rights Model centers on the Moderate Rights Status granted to temporary low‑skilled migrant workers, operationalized through three rights dimensions: free choice of employment, access to welfare, and family reunification. This model shares the same sufficient subsets (OPEN and TREND), enabling a structured comparison across both governance types. The chapter presents extensive original data—including a novel dataset on LILSO participation—calibrates all subsets using crisp and fuzzy-set logic, and maps the distribution of countries across the two liberal models. The results reveal noteworthy dual membership patterns, indicating that numbers and rights are not inherently opposed and may coexist under specific institutional and historical configurations.