Cancelled: CMIST Afternoon Seminar- “Immigrationization” of Welfare Politics?
| Dates: | 8 November 2016 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Prof. Brian Burgoon |
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This seminar has been cancelled. We will rearrange this seminar.
“Immigrationization” of Welfare Politics?
How Sociocultural and Socioeconomic Circumstances Shape the Relationship Between Immigration Attitudes and Ideas about Welfare Redistribution
Abstract
Several studies have shown that natives’ attitudes toward immigration affect their support for welfare redistribution. According to what has been referred to as an “immigrationization thesis”, negative attitudes towards immigration and immigrants lead to less support for welfare redistribution, mainly on grounds that immigrants are seen as undeserving and yet disproportionately draw on social welfare policies and services. On the other hand, some studies articulate a competing thesis, what amounts to “positive immigrationization,” where anti-immigration attitudes lead to more support for the welfare state on grounds that immigrants are thought to increase natives’ economic insecurities that in turn require social policy protection as insurance or compensation.
Based on an analysis of 24 European countries (2002-2014), we argue and demonstrate that both of these kinds of “immigrationization” can be at play, and that the relationship between attitudes about immigration and welfare redistribution is strongly moderated by the sociocultural and socioeconomic context. In particular, we find that anti-immigration attitudes lead to less support for redistribution when a country actually faces more immigration, when welfare-state protections are generous and when migrants actually do rely more on the welfare state than do natives; and that negative feelings about immigration may lead to more support for redistribution when a country faces only modest migration, has less developed social-policy protections and/or lower social policy dependence among migrants. These findings suggest that recent developments in Europe might well lead to increasing, but also complex, “immigrationization” of welfare attitudes.
Co-author: Matthijs Rooduijn (University of Utrecht)
Tea/coffee from 3.45. All are welcome. No registration needed.
Speaker
Prof. Brian Burgoon
Organisation: University of Amsterdam
Travel and Contact Information
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2.07
Humanities Bridgeford Street
Manchester
