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

Arbeitspapier

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research ; No. 272

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; National Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs ; Social Security and Public Pensions ; Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
• Subject: redistribution ; social security ; welfare state ; immigration ; ethnic diversity ; Germany ; cluster-robust standard errors ; two-way clustering ; Einwanderung ; Sozialstaat ; Meinung ; Bevölkerung ; Schätzung ; Deutschland

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Stichnoth, Holger
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2010

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/150818
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET