ABSTRACT
During the first decade of this century, there has been increasing popular pressure for more restrictive immigration policies across the globe. While multiple issues have catalyzed the expanding ambivalence towards immigration world-wide, one important dimension of this unease stems from the perception that migrants pose a financial burden on the state. Debates over the type, extent, and timing of state-provided social services for immigrants reflect deep ideological divides in many countries. Those against the extension of welfare benefits to immigrants assert that programs attract immigrants (the “magnet hypothesis”), engender a “culture of dependency,” and are an unsustainable strain on the state (Borjas 2002). These studies focus on cost-benefit analyses and assess the impact immigrants have on specific social protection programs. In contrast, others recognize the importance migrants have on the host societies’ economy and the future sustainability of the welfare system (Bean and Stevens 2003). Moreover, many Western societies see immigration as a viable solution to the demographic challenge posed by growing elderly populations requiring services and a shrinking younger population whose labor and taxes help subsidize such resources (Castles and Miller 2003). In this chapter, we examine the debates on the role of immigration and the future sustainability, coverage, and configuration of existing welfare state programs on both sides of the Atlantic. One strand of the social scientific scholarship examining the relationship between welfare
state provisions and immigrant integration policies focuses on the repercussions of extending or limiting social benefits and rights to immigrants (Freeman 2009). The results of such scholarship are mixed. One key insight from the literature on social rights extension to migrants is that Western democracies face a “progressive dilemma” between sustaining an inclusive welfare state system (including, for example, health care, and public education) for some types of migrants, while simultaneously keeping popular support for welfare state policies (Brettell and Hollifield 2000). Some scholars observe that societies that extend social welfare benefits to migrants are
likely to adopt universal personhood rights and tend to be more lenient regarding the type of membership they extend to migrants allowing dual citizenship, for example, as in the case of Sweden (Soysal 1994). Others show that in a context of increased immigration, there is a tendency to restrict social and political rights to immigrants (Freeman 2009). Still others show that robust welfare systems may result, in some cases, in more restrictive immigration policies over time (Koopmans 2010). What these diverse findings show is that how societies approach access to welfare benefits has repercussions for understanding how immigrants are integrated socially and into labor markets and also shapes public opinions towards immigration, immigrants, and what it means to be a member of the state (Sainsbury 2006). In examining this relationship between welfare state systems and immigration policies, some
have argued that the European social policy model is undergoing a process of “Americanization.” In other words, the European public is increasingly expressing anti-immigrant sentiments which are tied to perceptions of how much immigrants use and benefit from social and welfare services (Freeman 2009). Welfare chauvinism may be due, in part, to the abandonment of Keynesian economic redistribution principles and the embrace of a more “American” neoliberal model regarding social policies in which attitudes of individual responsibility prevail (Wilson 1996). In the context of the United States, such individualistic approaches are congruent with popular views that robust welfare services are a drain on the economy. In the context of Europe, there may also, however, be other potential explanations which warrant further study. Contrary to their counterparts in the United States, Europeans may not necessarily want to dismantle the social welfare system and privatize services per se, but, rather, may wish to implement restrictive policies in order to protect it for citizens by excluding migrants’ access to these services. While these ideological principles are subject to continued discussion, one key issue that can inform future policy developments is whether increased ethnic heterogeneity because of immigration erases the class-based in-group-solidarity necessary to sustain a universal welfare state system based on high taxation levels. Furthermore, in the absence of such solidarity towards immigrants, do Western democracies run the risk of perpetuating a system in which immigrants constitute the “new urban underclass?” To address these issues, we explore several themes of actuality: the above mentioned liberal
paradox western democracies face, the welfare magnet hypothesis and the emergence of welfare chauvinism from an empirical and cross-national comparative perspective. These themes are not exhaustive of the multiple nuances of the relationship between the state and immigration. They are, nonetheless, key in examining future policy developments in western societies. Given the extensive variations of institutional arrangement regarding the organization of social protection systems and immigration policies across countries, an investigation of the relationship between the welfare state and practices associated with entitlement, exclusion, and overall political and social membership is timely (Geddes 2003: 152). We conclude with remarks on how the state might respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by increased immigration to Western societies.
