Europeans’ Attitudes To Immigration From Within And Outside Europe: A Role For Perceived Welfare Impacts?

Europeans’ Attitudes To Immigration From Within And Outside Europe: A Role For Perceived Welfare Impacts?

July 11, 2018

Working Paper

This working paper, which is part of work package 10, explores how EU nationals evaluate migration, and its impacts on the welfare state. In particular, the authors ask whether these evaluations distinguish between intra-EU mobility and immigration from outside the EU, and whether perceptions of welfare impacts play a role in any evaluative differences.

The authors find that EU nationals who think that immigrants have a negative fiscal impact on the welfare state (i.e. consume more in services than they contribute in taxes) are much more likely to support restrictions to immigration inflows, by a margin of 30 percentage points. And, among people who favour restrictions of future immigration inflows, approximately 90% do not distinguish substantially between immigrants of non-European or European origins.