Granting immigrants access to social benefits? How self-interest influences support for welfare state restrictiveness

Abstract

In the context of large-scale migration within and into Europe, the question of whether and under which conditions immigrants should be granted access to social benefits in the country of destination is of high political relevance. A large body of research has studied natives’ attitudes towards giving immigrants access to the welfare state, while research on attitudes of immigrants themselves is scarce. Focusing on the impact of self-interest, we compare immigrants and native citizens in their attitudes towards granting immigrants access to the welfare state. We identify three mechanisms through which self-interest can influence these attitudes: immigrant origin, socio-economic status and – for first-generation immigrants only – incorporation into the host society. We test our expectations using cross-national data from the European Social Survey round 2008. The findings suggest that self-interest is indeed one of the factors that motivate attitudes towards welfare state restrictiveness among natives and immigrants, but also point at relevant exceptions to this pattern.