Measuring welfare chauvinism through focus group discussions

Welfare chauvinism, or the opposition towards social rights for migrants and refugees, is at the heart of current political conflicts. The vast majority of academic publications on public welfare chauvinism use the representative European Social Survey that restricts the answer to when migrants should get welfare access to five options: (1) Immediately on arrival; (2) After living in [country] for a year, whether or not they have worked; (3) Only after they have worked and paid taxes for at least a year; (4) Once they have become a [country] citizen; (5) They should never get the same rights. Does this question reflect the way individuals think about welfare chauvinism? This paper aims to measure welfare chauvinism through focus group discussions from Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain (134 participants in total) that were conducted in 2022. The participants completed a quantitative survey before the discussions started that included the European Social Survey question. This way, it was possible to connect the survey results with the discussion comments for each participant. The findings from this analysis are twofold: (1) Reciprocity appeared to be the most central condition for newcomers to receive welfare support in the focus group surveys and discussions, which is what the results from the European Social Survey show too; (2) The focus group discussions revealed important contradictions and nuances, such as definitions of reciprocity, migrants and refugees as well as welfare support and generosity. Future research should thus investigate the multidimensionality of public welfare chauvinism in more detail.