Rokkansenteret – Bergen Migrasjon og velferdsstat 19.10.2007

1. Rokkansenteret – BergenMigrasjon og velferdsstat 19.10.2007 Does Immigration undermine the Solidarity of the Welfare state? Or Does the Welfare State mobilise Solidarity with Immigrants? Jørgen Goul Andersen Aalborg University www.ccws.dk

2. 1. Culture hypothesis: Cultural homogeneity = precondition of welfare solidarity (Alesina & Glaeser 2004) Europe becomes similar to US Deservingness criteria (van Oorschot 2006): • Control • Need • Identity • Attitude • Reciprocity

3. 2. Alternative: Institutional hypothesis: • Institutions matter • Temporal order matters

4. 1. Institutions matter → Type of welfare state matters • residual welfare state targeted to the poor = vulnerable (welfare recipients not like ”us”) • institutional welfare state covering social risks and providing services for the entire population = much less vulnerable

5. 2. Temporal order matters → What comes first: Welfare state or cultural diversity? • may be difficult to build a welfare state • far less difficult to maintain a welfare state • may even mobilize solidarity with immigrants • (But could also become less inclusive → welfare state chauvinism?)

6. Taylor-Gooby (2005): No direct link between ethnic/racial diversity and social spending Politics is intervening (mediating) variable And Politics is crystallized as welfare institutions

7. Denmark as test case “worst case”: • Unsuccessful labour market integration • Political mobilisation of anti-immigration sentiments • Attitudes to immigration at least as important for political identities and party choice as economic left-right position in 2001 and 2005. • → If solidarity deteriorates anywhere, it should deteriorate in Denmark

8. Worst case: Electoral support for the Progress Party and the Danish people’s Party, 1973-2005. Percentages

10. Does multiculturalism lead to erosion of solidarity? • Pure Culture argument: Multiculturalism → negative impact on solidarity • Culture/institutions argument: Differences in work ethics - undermine system with weak economic incentives? • Rational self interest argument: Competition over jobs? Welfare? • ”Collateral damage”/Demobilisation argument: Indirect effect via mobilisation of neoliberal anti-immigration parties and demobilisation of labour movement (Kymlicka) Institutional hypothesis: None of these. But institutional hypothesis does not rule out negative attitudes towards foreigners

11. Welfare state attitudes in Denmark,1994-2007. Percentages

12. Attitudes towards welfare spending 1990-2005

13. Conclusion:Attitudes towards welfare spending areas • No decline in support for Social Assistance, even though immigrants constitute a rapidly increasing proportion of recipients • Decline in support for Public Pensions, even though these are received almost exclusively by Danes • Policy-dependent attitudes to spending for immigrants (changes happened between 2001 and 2003, immediately following change in policy) → Not even change in support for programmes de facto targeted more and more towards immigrants

14. Attitudes towards scope of government

15. Mobilization of solidarity: Association between considering immigration salient problem and attitudes to immigrants

16. Implications of culture hypothesis: • Most generous/institutional welfare states should be most reluctant to grant equal rights to immigrants Or: • Most generous welfare states should have strongest requirements about cultural conformity: The more people pay, the more they should expect recipients to be like themselves → Test on ESS 2002

17. Attitudes towards equal treatment and requirement of cultural conformity

18. A note about rational self-interest Competition over jobs? Competition over welfare? →Country differences? →Part of the explanation of support for anti-immigration parties?

19. Job competition and welfare competition

20. Welfare competition and support for anti-immigration parties? • Until 2005 election no indications at all • In 2005 over-representation of Danish People’s Party among disability pensioners (about 25 %) and unemployed (> 15%) Alternative explanations: • Educational & class composition: Profile equivalent to Social Dem. (but more working class) • Interest politics: Attempted issue ownership on improvements for disability pensioners

21. Collateral damage/ demobilisation of labour movement → erosion welfare?

22. But there was a price to be paid ! • Liberal / Conservative had to appear as welfare-friendly (spin: appear as lavish as possible. Tax relief = politics of obfuscation) • Danish People’s Party has transformed itself to an ardent supporter of welfare - With emphasis on ”classical” Social Democratic welfare issues - Against tax relief, but willing to compromise

23. ”Traditional welfare” spending attitudes

24. Cultural/instutional:Problems with work ethic? Danish welfare state: High minimum protection means that work does not pay much for the lowest skilled and lowest paid workers • Danish UB almost flat rate → Extremely high compensation for those receiving low pay – and having few psychological gratifications from work • Social assistance comparatively high and also almost flat rate (but means-tested) • Vulnerable to moral hazard

25. Immigrants are low paid→Job incentives rather weak

26. Work orientations, by mother tongue 1999

27. The government didn’t know or didn’t care: Emphasis on make work pay - Always → De facto restrictions in access to social protection for immigrants without work → Particularly strong effects for families with children

28. Restrictions in access to social protection for immigrants (de facto) 1. Restrictions on immigration 2002: Immigration package: • Family reunion only for > 24 years old • Attactment requirement: strongest to Denmark • Support requirement: Person residing in Dk. must be able to provide; not receive SA last year • Collateral requirement: Bank guarantee € 7.500 • Housing requirement: 20 sqm pr. person • Stronger requirements for receiving citizenship • Applies also to Danish citizens returning from non-EU countries

29. Restrictions in access to social protection for immigrants (de facto) 2. Labour market policy 2002: Immigration package: • Start assistance / integration allowance for 7 years. • Reductions 35-50 % compared to SA • Least generous SA in Northern Europe

30. Restrictions in access to social protection for immigrants (de facto) More people to work (2002) • Lower SA after 6 months if both spouses receive SA • Lower ceiling to SA for families with high expenses • SA replaced by Spouse supplement if spouse is considered a homemaker A New Chance for All (2005) • SA for married recipients conditional on 300 hours of work in a two year period except for ”matching group 5” – those considered completely unemployable Welfare Reform (2006) • Spouse Supplement Abolished

31. Restrictions in access to social protection for immigrants (de facto Other restrictions than those applying to unemployed: • (1973 – EU): Restrictions on access to old age pensions (40 years of residence) • Otherwise: Increasing inclusion de facto

32. The beginning of a new path or exhaustion? • Exception to inclusiveness or ”dualization of social rights? • The limits are recognized by the Ministry of Employment (former Ministry of Labour) • Increasing acceptance of equal social rights for immigrants • (source of success of Danish People’s Party increasingly to be found in the party’s very traditional welfare policies)

33. Attitudes to equal social rights for immigrants

34. CONCLUSION • Overall support for (institutional) welfare state not affected at all + not likely that it will be • No measurable decline in support for social protection that is de facto targeted increasingly to immigrants • Some evidence of mobilization of solidarity with immigrants • Collateral damage: Permanent bourgeois majority but only because they (appear to) accept the welfare state (new social political majority of odd bedfellows who dislike sleeping together) • The path towards a dual welfare state seems almost exhausted • But strong restrictions on non-labour force immigration is likely to remain

35. Sources: Based on: Jørgen Goul Andersen (2007). ”Restricting Access to Social Protectionfor Immigrants in the Danish Welfare State”. Benefits, vol.15 no.3, pp. 257-69. Jørgen Goul Andersen & Jacob Jepsen Pedersen (2007). ”Continuity and Change in Danish Active Labour Market Policy, 1990-2007. The Battlefield between Activation and Workfare”. Paper submitted for publication. Jørgen Goul Andersen (2006). Immigration and the Legitimacy of the Scandinavian Welfare State. AMID Working Paper no. 53. (a revised version under way towards publication)