Different or Not? Migrants’ Attitudes Toward Government''s Responsibility and Moral Consequences of the Welfare State

Public support for the welfare state depends on a range of factors. Recently, the attitudes’ literature showed interest in the influence of migration on support for the welfare state. This is not surprising since migration is often considered to be a threat for the welfare state. One of the reasons for this belief is that public support is an important cornerstone for the welfare state and that migration may be the cause of a decrease in public support. There is indeed some empirical evidence that migration affects natives’ support negatively. However, most of the attitudes’ research so far has focused on natives’ attitudes toward the welfare state. What migrants themselves think about the welfare state, its organizational principles and outcomes, and whether their attitudes differ from natives'' attitudes only received little scholarly attention. This paper aims to fill this void in the literature by looking at migrants’ attitudes toward the welfare state. It addresses attitudes toward two different welfare dimensions: governmental responsibility for welfare provision and the moral consequences of the welfare state. Both dimensions are used as dependent variables in our regression analysis for 12 European countries. Data from the fourth round (2008/2009) European Social Survey (ESS) are used. A better understanding of migrants’ attitudes toward the welfare state can help to determine to what extent migrants’ attitudes can offset the negative effect of migration on natives’ support for the welfare state or the negative picture about migrants and the use of benefits as portrayed by media and right wing politicians.