The Impact of Welfare Benefits on Natives' and Immigrants' Attitudes Towards Immigration
WWWforEurope Working Paper Series 82
55 Pages Posted: 16 Feb 2015
Date Written: February 14, 2015
Abstract
We investigate whether the dependence of immigrants on welfare benefits leads to opposition to further immigration by natives and immigrants in a pooled cross-section of 21 European countries for the 2004-2010 period. Explicitly controlling for the dependence of immigrants and natives on benefits we find that higher benefit take-up rates among immigrants than among natives lead to less favourable attitudes of natives towards immigration. Interestingly, we do not find similar stylised facts for immigrants' attitudes towards immigration.
Keywords: immigration, welfare state, migration attitudes
JEL Classification: F22, J15, H53, I38
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation