Support for redistribution and the paradox of immigration

Abstract

This paper argues that immigration has varying implications for attitudes about government redistribution depending on the level at which immigration is experienced. Working in occupations with higher shares of foreign-born employees can raise individual economic insecurities in ways that might overwhelm the way high foreign-born shares of the population can reduce solidarity or increase fiscal burdens. Hence, experiencing more immigration in one’s occupation might more positively affect support for government redistribution than does experiencing more national-level immigration. We test this and other expectations on survey data in 17 European polities, focused on occupational and national measures of immigration. While national-level exposure to foreign-born populations tends to have little effect on support for government redistribution, occupational-level exposure to immigration tends to spur such support. These results suggest that immigration directly influences the politics of inequality, but in ways more complicated than recent scholarship suggests.

Immigration Attitudes and Support for the Welfare State in the American Mass Public

“…Empirical research conducted in Western developed countries-especially in Europe-shows some support for the argument that either the presence of immigrants in one's context or individuals' subjective attitudes toward immigrants can influence public support for welfare (Burgoon, Koster, and van Egmond 2010;Eger 2010;Hjerm and Schnabel 2012;Larsen 2011;Mau and Burkhardt 2009;Sumino 2013). Specifically, increased immigration has the effect of increasing the racial and ethnic heterogeneity of a given political system, and this might reduce the sense of national identity and social solidarity needed for the welfare state.…”

“…Using the American experience with race and welfare as a foundation, comparative scholars have begun to examine whether or not the increasing immigrant populations experienced by Europe during the 1990s and 2000s might lead to an erosion of support for welfare programs (Burgoon, Koster, and van Egmond 2010;Eger 2010;Hjerm and Schnabel 2012;Larsen 2011;Mau and Burkhardt 2009;Sumino 2013). According to Kymlicka and Banting (2006, 286) this position has even become dominant: "The strongly racialized dimension of US welfare politics is no longer seen as an anomaly .…”

Labor Market Competition with Immigrants and Political Polarization

“…6 Personal labor market consequences of immigration have been found to push support for redistribution in a leftist direction (Burgoon et al, 2012;Finseraas, 2008). We are not aware of any empirical studies of how immigration affects support for social insurance.…”

“…We further highlight a potential leftist, compensatory response where demand for income redistribution and regulation of the labor market increases. This compensatory response has been largely ignored by the previous literature (but see Burgoon et al, 2012;Finseraas, 2008). Finally, we outline how the two responses can operate simultaneously and thereby make voter polarization a plausible political consequence of immigration.…”

“…One popular approach is to deduce the competition effect from the spatial correlation between the proportion of immigrants and vote shares (e.g., Halla et al, Forthcoming;Harmon, 2014;Sørensen, 2015). Other studies observe labor market penetration of immigrants along occupational and/or sectorial divisions within the same country (Burgoon et al, 2012;Dancygier and Donnelly, 2013). These approaches suffer from similar selection problems.…”