Immigration to the Land of Redistribution

Negative perceptions about migrants in Europe, the Continent with the largest social policy programmes, are driven by concerns that foreigners are a net fiscal burden. Paradoxically instruments of social inclusion are becoming a weapon of mass exclusion. Increasing concerns of public opinion are indeed pressing Governments, in the midst of the recession, to reduce welfare access by migrants or send them back home. In this paper we compare evidence on welfare access and the net fiscal position of migrants with perceptions based on a simple model of the perceived fiscal effects of migration and on a largely unexploited database (EU-SILC). We find no evidence that legal migrants, notably skilled migrants, are net recipients of transfers from the state. However, there is evidence of “residual dependency” on non-contributory transfers and self-selection of migrants more likely to draw on welfare in the countries with the most generous welfare state. In the light of these results, we discuss alternative strategies to unbundle migration from welfare access