Migrants’ Welfare State Attitudes

This research proposal is among the first to focus on migrants’ attitudes towards the welfare state. In Europe, the field of research on welfare state attitudes has ignored the perspective of migrants almost completely. Due to migrants’ socialization in different welfare regimes, and their often disadvantaged socio-economic positions, the migrant perspective provides a unique opportunity to test the central theories in the field on the role of self-interest, group-loyalty and of socialization in different welfare regimes. We aim to study migrants’ welfare state attitudes, and to explain differences across migrant groups, as well as differences compared to the overall public opinion in the country of origin and the host country. With this innovative focus we answer questions that cut across the call’s themes of ‘People and the welfare state’, ‘Inequalities and diversity’ and ‘Future politics’. We rely on existing cross-national datasets such as the ISSP. However, we also propose a harmonized and unique data collection among migrants in the destination countries Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. We composed a team with expertise on data collection among migrants, on public opinion research, and expertise on welfare state attitudes in particular. The project offers five young researchers (3 postdocs and 2 PhDs) the opportunity to continue or start their academic career including the opportunity to spend some time in another country involved in the project. The investment in this project will result in two dissertations, five research articles by each of the postdocs and a book compiled by the seniors involved. The unique focus on migrants provides both the academic community and policy makers with insights on new groups in society.