Immigration and the Welfare State: Immigrant Participation in Means- Tested Entitlement Programs

George Borjas and Lynette Hilton

No 5372, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper documents the extent to which immigrants participate in the many programs that make up the welfare state. The immigrant- native difference in the probability of receiving cash benefits is small, but the gap widens once other programs are included in the analysis: 21 percent of immigrant households receive some type of assistance, as compared to only 14 percent of native households. The types of benefits received by earlier immigrants influence the types of benefits received by newly arrived immigrants. Hence there might be ethnic networks which transmit information about the availability of particular benefits to new immigrants.

JEL-codes: J0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995-12
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published as Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 111, no. 2 (May 1996): 575-604. Published as "Immigration and the Family", JLE, Vol. 9, no. 2 (1991): 123-148.

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Journal Article: Immigration and the Welfare State: Immigrant Participation in Means-Tested Entitlement Programs (1996)
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