Does Immigration Weaken Natives' Support for the Welfare State?: Evidence from Germany

Holger Stichnoth

No 272, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, I study whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. Unlike previous studies, I use individual-level panel data, which allows a more convincing identification of a causal effect. I find that the negative bivariate association is mainly driven by observed individual differences such as East German origin or income. While there remains some evidence of a negative association even after adjusting for individual differences (including time-invariant unobserved differences), the association is weak compared to the association with other variables such as income, self-employment, or East German origin.

Keywords: redistribution; social security; welfare state; immigration; ethnic diversity; Germany; cluster-robust standard errors; two-way clustering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H53 H55 I38 J15 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 p.
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Does immigration weaken natives' support for the welfare state? Evidence from Germany (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp272

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