Immigrants and Welfare Preference in the US, UK, France, and Italy

• In Event: Social Identity and Beliefs on Welfare and Immigration

Abstract

Both economic and identity considerations shape immigration attitudes. Concerns about labor market and fiscal effects or cultural hostility can spark opposition to immigration. But what happens when individuals compare immigrants to native citizens in considering who deserves welfare support? Does being a native citizen matter more or less than providing economic contributions to society? And can immigrants reduce their disadvantage by displaying attractive economic characteristics?

On the one hand, an extensive literature argues that the central determinants of welfare deservingness are recipients’ economic contributions. On the other, a rich body of work highlights the salience of immigration in the politics of welfare. Two limitations in the existing scholarship, however, leave important questions unanswered. First, most studies neglect the interplay of economic contributions and identity. What happens when an immigrant is a hard worker while a native citizen appears lazy? Second, the literature often confounds several recipients’ characteristics, failing to evaluate the marginal effect of correlated recipients’ attributes.

To unpack these conditions, I ran original survey conjoint experiments with nationally representative samples in four countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. These countries have different immigration experiences and represent opposite extremes in the welfare reforms adopted since the mid-1990s. The UK and the US, where the poor are seen as undeserving, chose a “work first” approach and introduced strict work requirements. Italy and France, were the poor are seen as victims, embraced a “welfare first” approach to re-integrate the poor in society.

In each conjoint experiment, respondents expressed support or opposition to welfare benefits for unemployed individuals for whom I randomly varied immigrant identity, religious identity, work attitude, work history, health, need, and education.

National origin emerges as the most powerful determinant of welfare attitudes. Immigrants are considered less deserving than unemployed who are not looking for a job, who rely on welfare despite being healthy, or who have never had regular jobs. Even Western immigrants suffer from strong negative attitudes.

While this is true in each country, the relative importance of economic and identity characteristics, along with the ability of immigrants to reduce their penalty through economic contributions, vary substantially across countries. In the US and the UK, welfare applicants’ effort is more important, inasmuch as the poor must prove that they deserve welfare support. As a result, immigrants can reduce their disadvantage by showing hard work credentials. In contrast, in Italy and France, where the poor are seen as victims of societal conditions and entitled to welfare support inasmuch as members of the national community, national identity is the central determinant. Consequently, immigrants fail to reduce their penalty with positive economic cues. The emerging picture is that of undeserving poor but (possibly) deserving immigrants in the US and the UK and of deserving poor but undeserving immigrants in France and Italy.

This study contributes to the literature on immigration and welfare preferences by analyzing the interaction of economic and identity factors, explaining variation across countries, and suggesting ways to contrast negative attitudes toward immigrants.

Author

• Gabriele Magni, Loyola Marymount University