The welfare state and individual attitudes towards immigration

Why do some people hold anti-immigration sentiments while others do not? Due to the political development of the last decade, this issue has gained a lot of interest. Previous research has shown that welfare state characteristics effects people’s perceived threat of immigration. The competition for scarce resources is, however, not the same for all population groups, as it is conditioned individual resources. By bridging two theoretical perspectives, this thesis explores how the effect of skill level and income on attitudes towards immigration vary depending on welfare state traits. Covering mainly 16 European countries, a quantitative approach is used to test these relationships between 2002 and 2010. The results suggest that unskilled native workers in generous welfare states are less inclined to welcome immigrants than unskilled workers in less generous welfare states. Income does not seem to have any significant interaction effects with welfare state variations. Several robustness checks were employed and another conclusion that can be drawn from the data is that all welfare programmes do not have an equal effect.