Prejudice and Cuts to Public Health and Education: A Migration Crisis or a Crisis of the European Welfare State and Its Socio-Political Values?

Abstract

The past few years have witnessed the development of prejudiced attitudes in some places in Europe. Biases alike are often considered a consequence of increased migratory movements to the continent and have also been connected to a more general crisis of the European Union political project. However, societies have diversely responded to migration even in countries presenting similar economic performances and immigrant inflows. Akin different reactions have raised some important questions: is prejudice connected to a broader European crisis and what does the latter consist of? This article responds to these research questions through a multilevel analysis of 24 European countries, and shows that the percentages of migrant population alone are not associated to anti-migrant sentiments. Such a situation has instead been the case only in those countries that have concurrently experienced cuts to the two key public sectors of education and health care, which constituted the pillars of the European Welfare State and one of the cores of the European Union’s political project.