Immigration or Welfare? The Progressive’s Dilemma Revisited

Abstract

Previous cross-national research on the link between immigration and the welfare state has focused exclusively on the relationship between the size of a country's foreign-born population and support for redistribution, neglecting that people vary in their responses to immigration. In this article, the authors revisit the progressive's dilemma by testing its theoretical proposition-that immigration and welfare are incompatible-in two novel ways. First, the authors conduct an individual-level analysis that demonstrates that, for most Europeans, supporting both immigration and welfare is unlikely. Second, the authors assess whether country-level immigration is associated with the salience of different immigration-welfare attitudes but find little evidence that immigration measured at the country level produces the most exclusive attitudes.

Welfare solidarities in the age of mass migration: evidence from European Social Survey 2016

“…Our results are in sharp contrast with the results of Kulin et al (2016), even as our analysis covers a later point in time and a somewhat different sample. They conclude that "for most Europeans, supporting both immigration and welfare is unlikely" (p. 1), while we find that more than 50% of Europeans actually do support both.…”

“…Another strand of argumentation states that people may also become less sympathetic to the welfare state if they think that it attracts migrants (for 'welfare magnet theory' see Borjas 1999). Hence, it is proposed that progressive politicians in European welfare states are confronted with a trade-off between supporting either a generous welfare state or migration, commonly referred to as the 'New Liberal Dilemma' or 'Progressives' Dilemma' (Goodhart 2004;Kulin et al 2016;Kymlicka 2015;Kymlicka and Banting 2006;Newton 2007).…”

“…As far as we are aware, there is only one study which uses a similar non-linear approach for establishing the relation between attitudes towards migration and the welfare state. Kulin et al (2016) applied Latent Class Analysis method to ESS4 data to classify respondents based on their attitudes towards: (a) redistribution of income between rich and poor; (b) allowing additional migration into their countries; and (c) social rights of migrants. They identified five groups-'pro-welfare, anti-migration', 'exclusive', 'pro-welfare, pro-migration', 'anti-welfare, anti-migration', and 'inclusive'.…”

Healthcare chauvinism during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In recent years, European scholars have paid growing attention to the phenomenon, because of expectations that citizens will increasingly turn towards welfare chauvinism as response to continuing immigration, with right-wing parties mobilising on the topic (Banting 2010;Keskinen, Norocel, and Jørgensen 2016). Public opinion surveys indeed demonstrate that substantial shares of the European population support welfare chauvinism (Bay and Pedersen 2006;van Oorschot 2006;Reeskens and van Oorschot 2012;Cappelen and Midtbø 2016;Ford and Kootstra 2017) and do not support both continued immigration and universal welfare (Kulin, Eger, and Hjerm 2016). Contra often-voiced fears that these results render immigration and universal welfare as incompatible, higher population shares of immigrants and their descendants do not seem to drive welfare chauvinistic attitudes (Mewes and Mau 2012;Reeskens and van Oorschot 2012;Cappelen and Peters 2018).…”

The political consequences of contemporary immigration

“…Senik, Stichnoth, and Van der Straeten () also find that Europeans who hold negative views of immigrants are less supportive of redistribution. More recently, Kulin, Eger, and Hjerm () find that most Europeans do not simultaneously support immigration and redistribution, highlighting that diversity and solidarity are difficult to reconcile. Finally, Schmidt and Spies () show that the political climate amplifies the negative relationship between anti‐immigrant sentiment and welfare attitudes.…”