The Salience of Immigration and its Effects on Welfare Priorities

Immigration has undoubtedly become one of the most salient topics in Western Europe and has often been linked to the welfare state – mostly by radical right parties. A large number of studies have, thus, investigated how immigration affects public support for redistribution and the welfare state. However, findings of both cross-sectional as well as experimental studies are inconclusive: whereas some find a negative effect of immigration on support for the welfare state, many do not. However, it would be mistaken to draw from these findings that the increasing salience and politicization of immigration is inconsequential for citizens’ welfare preferences. Based on recent arguments that immigration might influence support for social policy differently depending on policy design, I contend that immigration being salient does not necessarily affect how much welfare state the public wants but rather what kind of a welfare state. I argue that immigration being at the forefront of one’s thinking primarily affects which social policies are prioritized over others. This paper presents evidence from a unique survey experiment conducted in two West European countries (Germany, Sweden) in order to test this claim. Preliminary results show that priming respondents with immigration enhances their support for contribution-based policies in which immigrants are underrepresented among the beneficiaries (such as pensions). In contrast, support for policies from which immigrants benefit overproportionally (e.g. social assistance) and for universal social investment policies (e.g. childcare) is weakened. While the often-mentioned fear of immigration undermining support for welfare spending seems exaggerated, heated debates about immigration can indeed weaken support for the more redistributive and universal parts of the welfare state relative to its stratifying policies.