Does the Welfare State Affect Individual Attitudes towards Immigrants? Evidence Across Countries
Giovanni Facchini and
Anna Maria Mayda
Economics Discussion Papers from University of Essex, Department of Economics
Abstract:
This paper analyzes welfare-state determinants of individual attitudes towards immigrants - within and across countries - and their interaction with labor-market drivers of preferences. We consider two different mechanisms through which a redistributive welfare system might adjust as a result of immigration. In the first model, immigration has a larger impact on individuals at the top of the income distribution, while under the second model it is low-income individuals who are most affected through this channel. Individual attitudes are consistent with the first welfare-state model and with labor-market determinants of immigration attitudes. In countries where natives are on average more skilled than immigrants, individual income is negatively correlated with pro-immigration preferences, while individual skill is positively correlated with them. These relationships have the opposite signs in economies characterized by skilled migration (relative to the native population). These results are confirmed when we exploit international differences in the characteristics of destination countries' welfare state.
Keywords: Immigration Attitudes; Welfare State; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)
Downloads: (external link)
https://repository.essex.ac.uk/8915/ original version (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Does the Welfare State Affect Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants? Evidence across Countries (2009) 
Working Paper: Does the Welfare State Affect Individual Attitudes towards Immigrants? Evidence Across Countries (2007) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esx:essedp:8915
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Discussion Papers Administrator, Department of Economics, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, U.K.
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Economics Discussion Papers from University of Essex, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Essex Economics Web Manager ().