Migrants' support for welfare state spending in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands

Abstract

This contribution describes differences between 10 migrant groups and natives in their attitudes towards government spending in three residence countries: Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. Previous research provided evidence that "migrants" as a catch-all category of people from different origins are in favor of more government spending on social welfare. We study to what extent support for government spending can be explained by self-interest explanations of welfare state attitudes as well as by differences in ideological position. The contribution employs data from the Migrants' Welfare State Attitudes project, including migrant groups from similar origins in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. The study moves beyond the larger migrant groups of Turks and Poles that received attention in previous research as well, and includes a greater variety of groups that differ in terms of their skill levels.The overall finding is that migrants' welfare state spending preferences are, as in the case of natives, significantly related to sociodemographic differences and standard ideology measures of attitudes to regulation of the economy and family values. However, even with these standard variables included, spending preferences differ strongly between migrant groups, residence countries, and welfare spending domain. A comparison between country of origin and residence country provisions seems to be a promising path for further understanding migrant group differences in welfare state spending attitudes. The study challenges the idea that all migrants are supportive of extended welfare state arrangements.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Attitudes of Turkish and Moroccan Belgians toward Redistribution and Government Responsibility: The Role of Perceived Discrimination, Generation, and Religious Involvement

“…The few quantitative studies that try to explain the welfare attitudes of migrants and their descendants are mostly limited to indicators of self-interest and political ideology (Reeskens and van Oorschot 2015, Lubbers et al 2018, Schmidt-Catran and Careja 2017, Dancygier and Saunders 2006. The analysis presented here adds substantially to our understanding of support for redistribution and government responsibility among first-and second-generation migrants.…”

“…Focusing on well-defined minority groups (i.e., Turkish and Moroccan Belgians) allowed us to overcome some of the difficulties of existing studies caused by aggregating very different minority groups into a single category (Lubbers et al 2018). This design helped shed light on the wider context of the welfare attitudes of post-war labor migrants and their descendants that have settled in Western Europe.…”

“…Apart from qualitative research on the views of some specific groups of labor migrants toward the welfare state (Osipovic 2015, Timonen and Doyle 2009, Kremer 2016, only a few quantitative studies have explored migrants' attitudes toward government responsibility, redistribution, and welfare spending (Luttmer and Singhal 2011, Lubbers et al 2018, Reeskens and van Oorschot 2015, Dancygier and Saunders 2006, Schmidt-Catran and Careja 2017.…”

“…Regarding an opinion gap, previous studies have shown that even though most immigrants hold somewhat stronger pro-welfare opinions than do native-born citizens, the differences are largely explained by immigrants' disadvantaged socioeconomic position and higher welfare dependence (Dancygier andSaunders 2006, Reeskens andvan Oorschot 2015). Recently, the idea that the opinion gap is purely based on socioeconomic differences has been questioned by Lubbers et al (2018), who find large differences in attitudes toward government spending between migrant groups and native-borns, even after accounting for their socioeconomic and ideological position. Studies on the adjustment of migrants' welfare opinions have found mixed results for the premise that immigrants gradually adjust their attitudes to those of the host population over time, depending on the data used and attitudinal dimensions investigated Despite offering some valuable insights, existing research on migrants' attitudes toward redistribution and government responsibility has an important limitation because studies mostly use general population surveys, such as the European Social Survey (Luttmer and Singhal 2011, Reeskens and van Oorschot 2015) or General Social Survey (Luttmer 2001), that do not specifically target or oversample migrants.…”

“…Therefore, this study tests whether perceived discrimination affects migrants' support for government responsibility and redistribution, in addition to testing the traditional determinants regarding structural position, self-interest, and left-right ideology. By testing explanatory models that go beyond the individual's position in society and by highlighting the importance of perceived group position, we contribute to the growing literature on migrants' welfare attitudes (Reeskens and van Oorschot 2015, Schmidt-Catran and Careja 2017, Lubbers et al 2018. Instead of analyzing general population surveys, however, this study innovates by using the Belgian Ethnic Minorities Election Study 2014 (BEMES), which allows a focus on the specific case of Belgian citizens of Turkish and Moroccan descent.…”