Perceptions and realities: Explaining welfare chauvinism in Europe

This article uses data collected by the European Social Survey from 2016 to analyze welfare chauvinistic attitudes across 19 European countries. Its main focus is on how macroeconomic factors may affect how welfare chauvinistic attitudes are developed across Europe. The study employs multilevel linear regression to analyze both individual level and country level determinants on welfare chauvinism in Europe. It uses several familiar macro-level variables that have been found to influence welfare chauvinistic attitudes, but also introduces three new variables in the realm of unemployment: Native unemployment rate, foreign born unemployment rate and the gap between native and foreign born unemployment rate. It also employs individual-level variables measuring respondents’ perception of these macro-level factors. We find that the individuals in the Nordic and liberal welfare regimes have remained somewhat stable in regards to the most exclusionary form of welfare chauvinism, while there has been a moderate increase in these attitudes in the Southern and Central European welfare states. In the post-communist welfare regimes however, there has been a considerable increase in these attitudes. The multilevel analysis shows somewhat surprisingly that the macroeconomic variables have little to no effect in explaining welfare chauvinism in Europe. Only GDP per capita can be said to have an effect with a p-level under 0,05. None of the variables measuring the different nuances of unemployment can be said to have a significant effect on welfare chauvinistic attitudes across Europe. Interestingly however, is that the perception of the economic situation of the country and the state of the health services can be said to have an effect in explaining welfare chauvinistic attitudes. More dissatisfaction with the economy or the health services are therefore linked to welfare chauvinism. We therefore conclude that objective measures of a country’s economic situation seem to be of little relevance to explain welfare chauvinistic attitudes, it is to a greater extent individuals (often flawed) perception of these macroeconomic factors that help explain welfare chauvinism.