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Welfare threat and exclusionism of immigrants. Perception of immigrants
in different European welfare states. (Radka Klvaov)
home list theses contence previous next
1. Immigration, welfare state and xenophobia
Immigration into Western Europe after the Second World War followed various tracks[1],
and as a result of these immigration processes, an environment of cultural and ethnic
heterogeneity emerged in Europe, which brought a new challenge for the European, so far
relatively ethnically homogeneous, societies organized in the forms of nation states.
Not only was the cultural environment affected by immigration, but also the
institutional structure of the modern nation states was confronted. International migration
in its various forms challenges organizational and conceptual boundaries, borders,
important forms of social organization, such as the welfare state, as well as ways of thinkingabout us and them (Geddes, 2003a: 2). The civil, political and social rights originally
conceptualized as the exclusive entitlements of the native population forming the contract
between the state and citizens were partially extended also to some of the newcomers
(Phalet, Swyngedow, 2002). The state organized solidarity, founded originally on the notion
of ethnically based citizenship that indicated the community of legitimate receivers of
welfare state provision, has been challenged.
The welfare state is one of the most powerful institutions that immigrants are
confronted with in the European countries in a sense that it determines their position in the
society in different ways and divides them into various categories (Ireland, 2004: 5). As a
tool of both inclusion and exclusion the welfare state system also became a method of
regulation of migration by means of providing welfare support to some migrants and
denying it to others (Geddes, 2003b: 153).
The immigrants living and arriving in European countries often face negative attitudes of the
natives. This creates a barrier for their further integration into the society and increases
tensions between the ethnic groups. However, the attitudes towards immigrants vary across
countries, and yet not many studies tried to explain those differences, since they rather
focused on finding the similarities explaining xenophobia across Europe. This study aims at
finding whether living in a particular welfare state affects the perception of immigrants as a
source of threat to the welfare of the native population, and thus whether the differences in
the attitudes towards immigrants in various European countries can be explained by the
structural differences.
1.1 Welfare state types
There are different types of welfare states based on different ideas of social solidarity. In my
paper, I use Esping-Andersens typology of welfare states (1990, 1999). He distinguishes
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among three welfare state regimes. Firstly, the liberal welfare state emphasizes the market
dominance in welfare provision that is distributed according to ones efforts on the labour
market and stresses the individual responsibility for ones well-being. The level of
decommodification or independence from the market is the lowest among all the welfare
state regimes, and the basis for the social rights entitlement is a demonstrated need of the
deserving poor. State organized horizontal as well as vertical solidarity is on a very low
level. Secondly, the conservative-corporatist welfare statetype is based on the principle of
subsidiarity and thus the role of the state in the welfare provision is limited to the situations
where the lowest networks of solidarity, especially the family, fail. The degree of
decommodification is limited and the horizontal solidarity is favoured over the vertical
solidarity. The society is strongly segmented according to the status derived from the
position on the labour market, which is the main basis for the benefits entitlement. Thirdly,
the social democratic welfare state regime emphasizes the principle of universal solidarity
and the entitlement for social rights is based on citizenship. The degree of
decommodification is the highest among the three welfare regimes and the state takes the
responsibility for social welfare of its citizens. An extensive vertical redistribution attempts
to minimize the market as well as family dependency.
One of the topics discussed in the context of the welfare state and immigration is the effect
of the generosity of the welfare state on the extent of immigration and the type of
immigrants. An extensive research on the effect of immigration on the welfare state exists
(e.g. Borjas, 1999; Razin, Sadka, 2004, Lundborg, Segerstrom, 2002, Brcker et al., 2001),
but there is no room for discussion of these effects in this paper. Most authors conclude that
immigration can put a burden on the welfare state, but the effect of the immigration on thewelfare state depends on the characteristics of the immigrants. An evidence exists that
countries with the most generous welfare system can act as welfare magnets and attract
immigrants that are more likely to depend on the welfare system (so-called welfare
migration) (Brcker et al., 2001: 57, 82).
1.2 Theories of ethnic relations
This section provides an overview of the main theories of ethnic relations referring to
xenophobia, racism, prejudice, and ethnic exclusionism that, even if labeled differently in
the literature, provide explanations of the negative attitudes of the natives towards the
immigrants.
Wimmer (2000) provides a helpful summary of the theories of racism and xenophobia
and he distinguishes among four main explanations of xenophobia and racism[2]: the
rational choice theory, functionalism, sociobiology and discourse theory.
First, according to the rational choice theories, the natives perceive the immigrants
as illegitimate rivals in the competition over scarce resources and xenophobic discourse
helps to legitimate their position in this competition. The realistic conflict theorycomes from
the conflictualist sociological paradigm. Coser (1956) argues that competition over scarce
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resources between social groups is inherent in every social system. Blumer (in Quillian,
1995) develops a concept of a collective threat, which results in prejudice of the dominant
group against the subordinate group, because the dominant group views its group position
in relation to the subordinate group, that is perceived as threatening their position and their
ownership of certain resources belonging exclusively to the dominant group members.
Those theories claim that increased competition between ethnic groups for scarce resources
or the availability of those resources for redistribution puts pressure on the inter-ethnic
relations (Ederveen et. al, 2004: 74). The theory of economic self-interestclaims that the
members of the same economic structure share common interests and each class citizen
supports policy that maximizes his own utility. This theory also presents the immigrants as a
threat to the natives economic well-being (Gusfield in Fetzer, 2000). On the individual level,
negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities and immigrants emerge at individuals who are
in competition and conflict with them (Quillian, 1995: 587). The theory of labour market
versus use of services explains the hostility towards immigrants among native population by
the fear that immigrants will take away their jobs because they will accept lower wages and
they will also reduce their wages in the low skilled jobs. Moreover, the natives fear that they
will have to pay more taxes because the increasing number of immigrants will use the
publicly funded services (Muller, Espenshade in Fetzer, 2000).
Second and third type of theories explaining xenophobia in Wimmers classification,
functionalism and sociobiologyprovide an explanation of xenophobia and racism based on
perception of cultural differences. The inability of the foreigners to overcome them and
integrate into the receiving society feeds xenophobia according to the functionalist
discourse, and the fear of cultural incompatibility is the main source of xenophobia in thesociobiological discourse.
The fourth type in Wimmers classification is the discourse theory that does not
focus on the cultural differences of the immigrants, but rather on the construction of
xenophobia in a discourse of power groups, who define the social situations of economic or
political crises and label the immigrants as those responsible for the problems in society.
Moreover, labeling of the immigrants based on their ethnic differences through the
administrative and discursive practices reinforces the perceptions of them as distinct from
the native population.
Wimmer proposes his own thesis of xenophobia and racism called struggle over
collective goods, where he combines both collective and individual mechanisms of formation
of xenophobic attitudes. He proposes that racism and xenophobia are closely related to the
basic characteristics of the nation state representing interests of ethnically defined
community, and as such it serves as basis for the legitimization of xenophobic discourses
and the reinforcement of national identity. Immigrants do not fit into the image of shared
national history, when the institutions like the welfare state were created by joint labour
effort, and thus the xenophobic discourses of exclusion tend to show the immigrants as
people who came to unjustly claim the right for the collective wealth. Moreover, in times of
economic recession or welfare state instability immigrant groups with high unemployment
rates or asylum seekers are perceived as those who impede the state in its welfare provision
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to those who are members of the true, legitimately entitled community. However,
because the xenophobic discourses are mainly heard by the members of the community who
are most threatened by crises in the society, the negative attitudes towards immigrants are
not equally distributed along the social strata. Thus people with low level of education and
bad prospects of future career, who are also most likely to depend on the mechanisms of
organized social solidarity, seem to be most appealed by the xenophobic discourses of
exclusion (Wimmer, 2000).
Coenders (2001) presents a valuable concept of ethnic exclusionism when explaining
the negative perception of immigrants and ethnic minorities by the native majority group,
and also combines both the individual and collective level perspective. Ethnic exclusionism is
an outcome of the competition between ethnic groups at both individual and contextual level
that increases the perceived ethnic threat, which consequently reinforces the mechanisms of
social identification and contra-identification. According to the theory of ethnic competition,
which combines the realistic conflict theories and theories of social identification, the
stronger the actual competition, the stronger the perceived ethnic threat (Coenders, 2001:
42-43).
1.3 Welfare state and attitudes towards immigrants: hypotheses
and expectations
It stems from the overview of the theoretical perspectives above that the institutional
structure of modern nation states, and the welfare state based on the ethnically demarcatedsolidarity in particular, is an important factor in shaping the attitudes towards immigrants.
The immigrants can be perceived as a threat to the well-being of the native population, and
especially in time of social and economic crises, they are perceived as those who contributed
to their emergence. My approach to the analysis of the negative attitudes towards
immigrants combines the theoretical thoughts of the rational choice theories, theories on
the welfare state and immigration, and the conceptualization of Wimmer (2000) and
Coenders (2001) with the idea of Svallfors (1997 in Arts, Gelissen, 2001) who claims that
the attitude structure and value commitments are to a large extent based on contextual
factors, particularly on the type of the welfare state.
The study aims at answering two research questions:
1.How does the perceived welfare threat determine the exclusionism of immigrants by the
native population in different European welfare states?
2. How do the individual socioeconomic characteristics vary in their effect on the
exclusionism of immigrants and how do they interact with the perceived welfare threat in
different European welfare states?
Following the classification of the welfare state regimes of Esping-Andersen (1990,
1999) and the different notions of solidarity behind those distinct regimes, I expect that the
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perception of immigrants as a source of threat to the welfare of the native population differs
across the welfare states regimes. Following Ederveen et al. (2004) and the idea of welfare
migration (Brcker et al., 2001), I expect that in countries with a broad concept of solidarity
and large redistribution across the society, immigrants will be perceived as a larger threat to
the welfare of the natives, which will form a strong determinant of the exclusionism of
immigrants. In the welfare states where the market and individual self-reliance is
emphasized and the redistribution is minimal, the perceived threat to the welfare of the
natives from the side of immigrants can be expected to be a weaker predictor of the
exclusionism of immigrants. I call this hypothesis a redistribution hypothesis.
However, the logic of explanation of the effect of the type of state organized
solidarity on the attitudes towards immigrants can also be reversed. Coenders, Lubbers and
Scheepers (2003a) also hypothesize that living in a particular welfare state can have an
effect on ethnic exclusionism. They refer to a degree of decommodification, hence the
protection against social risks that differs between the welfare states, and put forward that
the competition over scarce resources can be modified by the state, depending on the
degree to which the state takes responsibility for the welfare provision. On the one hand, in
welfare states with high level of decommodification, the competition over scarce resources
within the society is reduced both with the members of the community and the immigrants,
and hence the perception of immigrants as a threat to the welfare of the native population
as well as the exclusionism of immigrants decreases. On the other hand, in the states with
weak decommodification, the competition over scarce resources is sharpened, and thus the
immigrants are perceived more as a threat to the welfare of the native population. I call this
hypothesis a decommodification hypothesis.The contextual level characteristics that influence the formation of attitudes towards
immigrants can also interact with the individual characteristics. The degree of
decommodification varies across welfare states, and thus also the extent to which the
competition over scarce resources is reduced. Following the rational choice theory logic,
individuals who hold similar position as immigrants in the system of social stratification are
more likely to compete with the immigrants than the others. The degree of
decommodification in the particular welfare state can thus have an important impact on the
perceived threat to the welfare of the native population, and consequently on the degree of
exclusionism of immigrants. Therefore, I expect that the social position in the stratification
system of the individuals from the native population will be more important in predicting the
exclusionism of immigrants due to their higher perceived welfare threat in countries with
low decommodification than in countries, where the independence from the market is
guaranteed by the state. Certain categories of people such as the elderly, low skilled people
and people with low income tend to be more dependent on the mechanisms of organized
solidarity than other people. Therefore, I focus on testing the effect of those characteristics
and their interaction with the perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants.
1.4 Overview of existing research
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The research about the welfare state regime influence on the perception of immigrants is
scarce. Coenders, Lubbers and Scheepers (2003b) found that in countries with high GDP per
capita, where more resources are available for redistribution, and the competition for scarce
resources can be reduced, the ethnic exclusionism is lower. ORourke and Sinnott (2004)
found that the effect of high-skills on more favourable attitudes towards immigrants is
greater in countries with less inequality.
Moreover, some researchers also attempt to indicate to what extent the concerns
about the welfare system and the economy are manifested in the negative attitudes towards
immigrant groups (Dustmann, Preston, 2000; Ederveen et al., 2004). Dustmann and Preston
(2000) found evidence that welfare worries are associated with negative opinion toward
further immigration to the United Kingdom, but they concluded that the racial prejudice was
the most important factor. They also found that welfare and labour market concerns are
more strongly associated with the negative attitudes towards immigration of non-manual
workers and more educated people than of manual workers and less educated people.
Regarding the socioeconomic characteristics as determinants of attitudes towards
immigration, Gang, Rivera-Batiz and Yun (2002) in their analysis of the Eurobarometer
surveys of 1988 and 1987 found that Europeans who directly compete with immigrants on
the labour market have more negative attitudes towards non-European Union citizens.
However, recent research of Hainmueller and Hiscox (2005), who used European Social
Survey data from 2003, showed that high skilled and highly educated people are more in
favor of immigration compared to people with low skills and education, regardless of the
rival potential of the immigrants, and thus they deny that the labour market competition
theory explain the negative attitudes towards immigration. Coenders, Lubbers andScheppers (2003b) in their analysis of determinants of immigrants exclusionism found that
people with low educational levels, in the lowest income quartile, depending on social
security, older people and those attending regularly religious services had more negative
exclusionist stances.
2. Research design and measurement instruments
The research is designed as a cross-national comparison of the perception of immigrants in
different welfare state regimes. The focus of the research is not to find general similarities
of the immigrants perception across the welfare states, but it rather attempts to find the
differences that are specific within the particular welfare regime context with respect to the
perception of immigrants. Thus an attention is paid more to the social structure dimension
and its impact on the formation of distinctive perceptions of immigrants, rather than to
individual processes of attitudes construction. However, in practice those two dimensions
interact with each other in the formative process of perception of immigrants (Verkuyten,
ter Wal, 2000).
Esping-Andersen in his theory indicated three models of welfare regimes and has classified
several Western countries according to this typology. In Europe, the only liberal welfare
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regime can be found in the United Kingdom, the conservative-corporatist welfare regime is
represented in Germany, Austria, France and Italy and the Scandinavian countries are
prototypes of the social-democratic welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1990: 27). To measure
the concept of the welfare regimes countries representing the distinct types are selected. In
order to increase the power of the causal inference two countries from each welfare regime
were selected with expectations that the same tendency will reveal in both of them due to
their specific institutional configuration. Liberal welfare regime forms an exception because
in Europe only one country representing this type can be found in reality. Thus United
Kingdom as the liberal welfare state, Germany and Austria representing the conservative-
corporatist type of the welfare state and Denmark and Sweden as archetypes of the social
democratic welfare state were selected for the comparison[3].
2.1 Data collection
In the research the data from European Social Survey (Round 1, 2002/2003) are used for
the analysis. The survey gathered data based on nation-wide samples of 22 countries
including United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Austria and comprises a module
devoted to attitudes, perceptions, policy preferences and knowledge on immigration and
asylum issues. The data was gathered by interviewers from all the countries in face-to-face
interviews from September 2002 till mid 2003[4].
2.2 Sampling strategy and weighting
The European Social Survey applied strict and rigorous sampling strategy in order to create
equivalent and representative country samples with respect to the population size and
characteristics. The stratified random sampling method was used with requirements for full
coverage of the target group, high response rate, no substitution and the same minimum
effective sample size in participating countries[5]. However, not all the samples reached
enough representativeness, and thus following the recommendation of the authors of the
ESS, I use weights that are designed to correct for the differences in probabilities of
selection in the sample. Those weights, however, do not correct for variation between
different groups neither for non-response in the sample[6].
When studying the attitudes of the native population towards immigrants it is
important to distinguish between the respondents from the majority non-immigrant
population and the respondents who came to live in the country, or are the descendants of
the immigrants. Thus I limited the analysis only to the respondents from the majority
population of non-immigrant origin. I chose those who were born in the respective country
and at least one of their parents as well, and in the paper I call them native population[7].
The rest of the sample was dropped (i.e. 12.6% of the total sample in Austria and Sweden,
12.4% in the United Kingdom, 10.9% in Germany and 6.2% in Denmark). Moreover, cases
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with missing values on more than 50% of the variables used in the analysis were also
excluded from the sample. After those transformations there are 1967 cases in Austria,
2599 cases in Germany, 1392 cases in Denmark, 1738 cases in Sweden and 1795 cases in
the United Kingdom.
2.3 Non-response and missing values treatment
Large non-response and missing values on the variables of interest can bias the results, but
there was no weight created to correct for non-response in the sample. The response rate
target for the ESS is set to 70% but not all the countries managed to reach this target. From
the countries of interest the highest response rate was reached in Sweden (69%) and
Denmark (68.4%). The response rate in the rest of the selected countries was lower: 60.6%
in Austria, 55% in the United Kingdom and 53.7% in Germany. Billiet and Meuleman (2005)
simulated the correction of non-response for several ESS samples with respect to gender,
age and education, but they found out that even if some non-response bias can be
eliminated by this weighting the amount of the eliminated bias is minimal compared to the
remaining bias.
Non-response on the items included in the analysis can be another source of bias, in
case that respondents differ systematically from non-respondents, and it also diminishes the
size of the sample. In order to avoid a large reduction in the sample size due to missing
values when creating the scales used in the analysis I took into consideration respondents
that gave answer at least on the 50% of the items forming the scale following the rule usedin scientific journals (Coenders, Lubbers, Scheepers, 2003b: 56). Missing values of the
respondents chosen on the basis of this rule were replaced by their mean score on the rest
of the items.
2.4 Measurement instruments, variables and the method of
analysis
The ESS questionnaire was not designed for the purpose of the present research but it
contains many important items related to the topic that is discussed in this paper. Thus it is
possible to use those items as indicators of the above mentioned concepts[8]. The
exclusionism of immigrants is the dependent variable, and it is measured by three questions
on the extent of immigration the country should allow with respect to the background of the
immigrant. I followed the image of immigrants the respondents expressed in the ESS
answering the question on the ethnic and economic background of most immigrants coming
to their countries. The greater part of the native population perceived that the majority of
immigrants coming to their country had different ethnic or race origin and came from poorer
countries rather than richer countries (see table 2A in the Annex)[9].
The key independent variable is theperceived welfare threatmeasuring the extent to
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which natives perceive immigrants and immigration as a threat for the welfare of their
countries. It is measured by five items on the perception of the effects of immigration on
countrys economy, the labour market and the use of welfare services.
Moreover, individual background variables such as gender, age[10], education[11],
income[12], International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI) (Ganzeboom,
Treiman, 1996a)[13], and church attendance[14] are controlled for in the analysis. Those
individual characteristics vary across countries and they showed significant impact on the
attitudes towards immigrants in previous research (Coenders, Lubbers, Scheepers, 2003b;
Quillian, 1995; Hainmueller, Hiscox, 2005; ORourke, Sinnott, 2004).
When comparing the perception of immigrants across countries, it can be also
important to control for contextual variables on the macro level. Those characteristics vary
across countries[15] and previous research showed different results with respect to their
impact on the perception of immigrants. In his study of twelve European countries, Quillian
(1995) found that the relative size of the immigrants population and the economic
situation in a country has an impact on the prejudice expressed by the majority native
population. Coenders (2001) compared 22 countries with respect to ethnic exclusionism and
found a link between the economic situation of the country, increase in inflow of asylum
seekers and the exclusionism of immigrants. However, the relationship between the
proportion of ethnically different population and exclusionism of immigrants was not
confirmed. Finally, in their comparative analysis across European countries, Coenders,
Lubbers and Scheepers (2003b) did not found any impact of unemployment, level of GDP,
proportion of non-western foreign born population, number of asylum applications and net
migration on the resistance towards immigrants.In the analysis, I wanted to control for the impact of the unemployment level,
proportion of non-western immigrants in the population, number of asylum applications and
net migration on the exclusionism of immigrants, not to obtain the effect of those
characteristics on the exclusionism of immigrants, but to single out the effect of the other
variables included in the analysis. However, it turned out that most of the contextual effects
are strongly correlated among each other and, where the characteristics of the country are
the highest from all the countries, they also correlate strongly with the dummy variable for
the respective country[16]. Thus there is a problem of high multicollinearity among the
independent variables and its negative consequences for the results[17]. Since the purpose
of the analysis is to assess the differences among the countries, it is not desirable that their
coefficient estimates might be biased. Therefore, in order to avoid this bias, I do not control
for those contextual effects in the analysis, but those characteristics are described and
discussed in the Annex, Table 5A.
Multiple ordinary least square regression is used as a method of analysis of the effect of
perceived threat to the welfare on the exclusionism of immigrants. First, separate analyses
are run for every country. Second, all the countries are included in the same regression
equation in order to assess the differences between the countries more in details.
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2.5 Comparability
Although the European Social Survey is a research project applying strict methodological
rules, the quality of the data is not the same in every country, and the data is not always
directly comparable across countries (see Billiet, 2005). It is behind the scope of present
paper to test for the comparability of the data across countries, and thus I rely on several
studies assessing the quality and comparability of the ESS data, and also, the use of the data
in previous research.
Billiet (2005) shows some traps in the ESS cross-nation research, mainly concerning
the problems with translations, also in connection with the effects of the context. Thus for
my research, I avoid using items from the ESS survey that were found problematic in the
previous research. Moreover, Billiet and Welkenhuysen-Gybels (2004) assessed cross-
national construct equivalence of the six items, on the extent of immigration respondents
thought their country should allow, with respect to the ethnic and economic background of
the immigrants. The authors concluded, that even if the scale constructed of those six items
was not scalar invariant, it was metric invariant, which is the minimum level of equivalence
required for measuring the same latent variable with the same set of indicators across all
the countries (Billiet, Welkenhuysen-Gybels, 2004: 16). However, following Coenders,
Lubbers and Scheppers (2003b), who acknowledged that in some countries the respondents
(in the case of present research it was Denmark and Germany) distinguished between the
immigrants from poor and rich countries and the immigrants with different race or ethnic
origin, and following the image the respondents had about the majority of immigrants in all
the countries, I included only three items on the extent of immigration from the six includedin the questionnaire[18].
3. Results
In this chapter, the results of the regression analysis are presented, and the hypotheses are
tested. First, I describe how the key variables, exclusionism of immigrants and the
perceived welfare threat, differ across countries. Second, to answer the first research
question, I discuss how the perceived welfare threat determines the exclusionism of
immigrants by the native population in different European welfare state. Third, I present the
conclusions for the second research question, how the individual socioeconomic
characteristics vary in their effect on the exclusionism of immigrants, and how they interact
with the perceived threat to welfare in different European welfare states.
3.1 Perceived threat to welfare and the exclusionism of
immigrants in different welfare regimes
First, description of the dependent variable exclusionism of immigrants and the key
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independent variableperceived welfare threatin the selected countries is shown in Table 1.
The descriptive statistics for other independent variables included in the analysis are
presented in the Table 1A in the Annex.
Table 1: Means and standard deviations for exclusionism of immigrants and perceived threat
to welfare in selected countries
Exclusionism of
immigrants
(1-low; 4-high)
Perceived threat to
welfare
(1-low; 5-high)
Country Mean Std.Dev. Mean Std.Dev.
Austria (N=1967) 2.64 0.68 3.10 0.70
Germany(N=2599) 2.34 0.68 3.27 0.67
Denmark(N=1392) 2.37 0.66 2.93 0.63
Sweden (N=1738) 1.95 0.65 2.79 0.61
United Kingdom
(N=1795)
2.58 0.74 3.30 0.68
Source: ESS 2002/2003, authors computations
The strongest exclusionism of immigrants is found in Austria with the mean value of
2.64 on the four points scale. United Kingdom follows with the mean value of 2.58, Germany
and Denmark are somewhere in the middle, and Sweden has the lowest score on the scale of
exclusionism of immigrants from all the countries (1.95). The analysis of variance shows
that the differences among the countries are statistically significant (F = 270.9; df = 4,
9224; p < 0.001). Games-Howell post-hoc test of the pairwise differences between the
countries indicates that the difference between Austria and the United Kingdom, and
Germany and Denmark in the exclusionism of immigrants is not statistically significant (p >
0.05).
People in the United Kingdom and Germany perceive immigrants as the strongest
threat to the welfare of their country from all the countries with the mean value of 3.3 on
the five point scale, followed by the Austrians and the Danish. The lowest threat to the
welfare from the side of the immigrants is perceived by respondents in Sweden, which alsocorresponds to their favourable attitudes concerning the acceptance of immigrants.
Comparison of the means of the separate countries on the scale perceived welfare threat
shows that the differences among the countries are statistically significant (F = 193.3; df =
4, 9275; p < 0.001). However, a closer investigation of the means differences in the Games-
Howell post hoc test shows that the differences in the mean perceived welfare threat are not
significant when comparing Germany and the United Kingdom.
In order to answer the first research question, how the perceived threat to welfare
determines the exclusionism of immigrants by the native population in different European
welfare states, I conduct, first, separate regression analyses for every country of interest
and, second, I include all the countries in one regression equation in order to be able to
assess the differences between the countries.
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The first estimated model can be considered as a series of k regression equations,
such that:
Eik
= ak
+ Xik
k
+ eik
, (1)
where Eik
is the level of exclusionism of immigrants for individual i in country k. Xik
is a
matrix of 9 independent variables in country k, k
is the corresponding estimated coefficient
and ak
is the intercept for country k, and eik
is an error term.
The results of the multiple OLS regression analyses conducted separately for every
country are shown in Table 3A in the Annex. The effects of the perceived welfare threat are
statistically significant at the 1% level and the magnitude of its effect is the highest from all
the independent variables included in the model (comparing standardized betas). The effect
is the highest in the United Kingdom, which is also the country with the strongest
exclusionism of immigrants. On the exclusionism of immigrants scale of 1 to 4, one unit
change on the perceived welfare threat scale ranging from 1 to 5 is expected to increase the
exclusionism of immigrants by 0.560, controlling for the individual background
characteristics. However, the effect of perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of
immigrants is the second highest in Sweden (=0.493), which is the country with the lowest
perceived welfare threat and the lowest exclusionism of immigrants. It is followed by
Germany (=0.441); Denmark (=0.402) and Austria (=0.371) show the lowest effect of
the perceived threat to welfare on the exclusionism of immigrants from all the countries.
All the independent variables included in the model explain 24% of the variance of
the exclusionism of immigrants in Austria, 26% in Denmark, 29% in Germany, 31% in
Sweden, and 37% in the United Kingdom. Clearly the amount of explained variance follows
the pattern of the magnitudes of the effects of perceived welfare threat across the countries.
The results concerning the effect of the perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism
of immigrants do not follow the pattern of welfare regimes which would mean that Denmark
and Sweden would show similar results, and Austria and Germany too. Thus the
expectations that the countries belonging to the same welfare regime show the same
tendency in the effect of the perceived threat to welfare on the exclusionism of the
immigrants are not met.
However, the regression coefficients from the separate regression equations do not show,
how large the differences of the effects of the perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism
of immigrants are between the countries. For this purpose the countries are included in the
same regression equation, which allows assessing the significance of the differences
between the countries:
Ei
= a + Xi
i+ AT
1+ DE
2+ DK
3+ SE
4+ AT*PWT
5+ DE*PWT
6+
DK*PWT7
+ SE*PWT8
+ ei, (2)
where Eiis the level of exclusionism of immigrants, a is the intercept, X
iis the matrix of 9
independent variables included in the model, i
are the corresponding regression
coefficients. 1
to 4
are the estimated coefficients for the country dummies, 5
to 8
are the
estimated coefficients for the interaction terms of the variable perceived welfare threat and
the dummy variables for each country, and ei
is an error term. United Kingdom is the
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reference country in this model.
Parameter estimates for the above mentioned model are shown in the Table 2 below.
Model 1 shows the regression estimates for the independent variables from the pooled data
analysis, when all the samples of the five countries are included in the regression equation,
but without adding the dummy variables for the countries. In model 2, the dummy variables
for the four countries are added in the analysis, and the differences in the intercepts in the
different countries are shown. Finally, model 3 includes also the interaction terms of the
variable perceived welfare threat and the country dummies, and thus the differences in the
effects of the perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants in different
countries are indicated.
In model 2, the predicted values on the exclusionism of immigrants in separate
countries, when controlling for the perceived welfare threat and the socio-demographic
characteristics, can be assessed. In the hypothetical situation when all the independent
variables have zero value, and assuming there are no method effects in the separate
countries Austria has the highest predicted value on the exclusionism of immigrants
(1.692[19]), followed by the United Kingdom (1.526) and Denmark (1.386) that do not
differ significantly from each other. Germany (1.311) and Sweden (1.110) have the lowest
predicted exclusionism of immigrants.
Table 2: Parameter estimates from ordinary least square regression analysis of exclusionism
of immigrants
(all countries included in the model)
Independent variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3Perceived welfare threat 0.494**
(0.010)
0.457**
(0.010)
0.564**
(0.021)
Education -0.024**
(0.003)
-0.027**
(0.002)
-0.028**
(0.002)
Age (ref: 26 - 55)
- 15 25 -0.167**
(0.022)
-0.169**
(0.021)
-0.172**
(0.021)
- 56 + 0.058**(0.015)
0.081**(0.015)
0.081**(0.012)
Male (ref. = female) -0.008
(0.015)
-0.011
(0.013)
-0.013
(0.013)
Income -0.00001
(0.000004)
-0.00001**
(0.000004)
-0.00001**
(0.000004)
ISEI -0.003**
(0.001)
-0.002**
(0.001)
-0.002**
(0.001)
Country (ref.=UK)
Austria 0.166**
(0.021)
0.792**
(0.096)
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Germany -0.215**
(0.019)
0.196*
(0.091)
Denmark -0.014
(0.022)
0.469**
(0.103)
Sweden -0.415**
(0.021)
-0.158
(0.096)
Country x perceived welfare
threat (PWT) (ref.=UK)
Austria x PWT -0.195**
(0.029)
Germany x PWT -0.124**
(0.027)
Denmark x PWT -0.151**
(0.033)
Sweden x PWT -0.007*
(0.031)
Church attendance (ref.=
never)
- once a month 0.058**
(0.019)
-0.018
(0.019)
-0.014
(0.019)
- rarely -0.0004
(0.015)
0.013
(0.014)
0.015
(0.019)
Intercept 1.261**
(0.050)
1.526**
(0.052)
1.169**
(0.079)
Adjusted R 0.298 0.370 0.373
Note: N = 8,337; **parameter estimate is significant at the 1% level (p-value < 0.01);
*parameter estimate is significant at the 5% level (p-value < 0.05). Numbers in
parentheses are standard errors.
Source: ESS 2002/2003, authors computations
In model 3, when controlling for the individual background characteristics the
perceived welfare threat is the strongest predictor of exclusionist stances in the United
Kingdom (0.564), and this effect differs significantly from the other countries. The strength
of the effects varies across the other countries, but after testing the differences between
other pairs of countries[20], I conclude that when following the order according to the
magnitude of the effect the lowest in Austria (0.369[21]), then Denmark (0.413),
Germany (0.439) and Sweden (0.492) - the countries next to each other do not differ
significantly from each other. Austria does not differ significantly from Denmark, Denmark
does not differ significantly from Germany, and Germany and Sweden do not differ
significantly in the effect of perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants.From the perspective of the welfare regime theory, in the United Kingdom, representing the
liberal welfare regime, the perceived welfare threat influences most intensely the
exclusionism of immigrants compared to the other countries representing different welfare
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regimes. This result supports the decommodification hypothesis, stating that the level of
decommodification influences the competition over scarce resources, and not the
redistribution hypothesis, stating that the level of redistribution influence the effect of
perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants. However, according to the
decommodification hypothesis, in the countries with the highest decommodification, the
effect of perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants should have been the
lowest, which is not the case shown in the results of the analysis. While in one of the
representative countries of the social democratic regime (Denmark) the effect of the
perceived welfare threat is among the weakest from all the countries, in the other one
(Sweden) the effect of the perceived welfare threat is the second strongest, not the weakest
as was hypothesized. Moreover, the countries representing the same welfare regime differ
significantly from each other in the effect of the perceived welfare threat on the
exclusionism of immigrants.
The results show that the effects of the perceived threat to the welfare from the
immigrants side differ across countries. However, no clear relationship between the type of
welfare regime and the effect of the perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of
immigrants exists.
3.2 Individual socio-economic characteristics, perceived welfare
threat and the exclusionism of immigrants
In this part, I answer the research question, how the individual socioeconomiccharacteristics vary in their effect on the exclusionism of immigrants, and how they interact
with the perceived welfare threat in different European welfare states. Separate regression
analyses are conducted for this purpose, and stepwise regression method is used, to
determine whether the interaction effects of the socio-economic characteristics income,
occupational status and age with the perceived welfare threat exist. The results of the
regression analysis are presented in Table 3A and Table 4A in Annex[22].
Controlling for other background characteristics and perceived welfare threat, the
International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status has a slight negative effect on
the exclusionism of immigrants, which is statistically significant on the 0.01 level in
Germany and Sweden. People with higher occupational status have, on average, lower
tendency to exclude immigrants in Germany and Sweden. However, no interaction effect of
the occupational status and the perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants
emerged.
Controlling for the rest of the variables in the regression analysis, income has no
statistically significant impact on the exclusionism of immigrants in any of the countries, nor
is there a different effect of perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants
depending on the level of income.
Age is a significant predictor of the exclusionism of immigrants in all the countries
when controlled for the other background variables and the interaction effect of age and
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perceived welfare threat. People aged 15 to 25have significantly less exclusionist stances
than people aged 26 to 55 in all the countries, except for Sweden. People older than 56
show stronger tendency towards exclusionism of immigrants as compared to the people
aged 26 to 55 in all the countries, except for Denmark. No interaction effect of age and
perceived welfare threat exists, except for Sweden[23] (weaker effect of perceived welfare
threat on the exclusionism of immigrants among those older than 56 compared to the
middle age group).
Concerning the other control variables included in the analysis, men have on average
more exclusionist stances than women in Germany and Denmark, while in the United
Kingdom it is the reverse. Education has a significant negative effect on the exclusionism of
immigrants in all the countries. Church attendance has a significant impact only in Austria
and the United Kingdom. In Austria, people who attend religious services have, on average,
more exclusionist attitudes towards immigrants than people who never go to church. The
effect is reversed in the United Kingdom, where people who go to church at least once a
month have, on average, significantly less negative exclusionist stances than people who
never attend religious services.
The hypothesis that the individual socio-economic characteristics are more important
predictors of the exclusionism of immigrants in countries with less decommodification
(strong effect in the United Kingdom, moderate effect in Germany and Austria) than in
countries with high level of decommodification has not revealed true. No clear welfare
regime type based pattern concerning the effect of the individual characteristics on the
exclusionism of immigrants and their interaction with the perceived welfare threat emerged.
4. Discussion and conclusion
This paper aimed at indicating whether living in a particular welfare state affects the
perception of immigrants as a source of threat to the welfare of the native population and
how it determines the exclusionism of immigrants. The main finding of the study is that the
perception of immigrants as a source of threat to the welfare among the native population
differs across countries, but no clear relationship between the type of welfare regime and
the effect of the perceived welfare threat on the exclusionism of immigrants exists. Even if
the impact of the individual background characteristics on the exclusionism of immigrants
differs across the countries, and it does not always show the same tendency and
significance, there is no welfare regime based pattern of the effect of the individual
socioeconomic characteristic on the exclusionism of immigrants.
The study suggests that the welfare regime theory cannot explain the differences in
xenophobia in various European countries. Thus a question arises: which other factors can
explain the differences in exclusionism of immigrants across countries? Why is the
perceived welfare threat such a strong determinant of the exclusionism of immigrants in the
United Kingdom compared to Austria, given that both countries have almost the same level
of xenophobia?
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The countrys macro-level characteristics such as the proportion of foreign born
population, number of asylum seekers or unemployment level do not seem to provide a
satisfactory explanation since they showed ambiguous results in previous research.
Moreover, Wallace (1999: 11) remarks that it is not so much about the actual extent of
immigration as about its perception, and the way how the issue of immigration is expressed
in public discourse.
Some authors tried to explain the differences in attitudes towards immigrants across
countries with type of immigration policy. Bauer, Lofstrom and Zimmermann found an
evidence that countrys immigration policy affects which immigrants come to the country,
their economic performance, and thus also their perception by the native population. Their
findings suggest that in countries that select the immigrants according to the needs of the
labour market (Canada, New Zealand) the natives perceived them as generally good for the
economy, than in countries that receive mainly refugees (the Netherlands, Sweden) (Bauer,
Lofstrom and Zimmermann in Brcker et al., 2001: 53).
The study of immigration policy determinants of the natives attitudes towards
immigrants or the comparison of public discourses could be the possible directions to go
further to explore the factors determining the varying degrees of xenophobia across
European countries. Comparative analysis of the attitudes towards immigrants in different
countries can reveal the causes of xenophobia that can be consequently to some extent
eliminated by various policies in order to ameliorate the inter-ethnic relations and facilitate
the integration of the growing number of immigrants in European countries.
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Annex
A1. Annex 1: Tables
Table 1A: Means and standard deviations for the independent variables
Variables Austria
(N=1967)
Germany
(N=2599)
Denmark
(N=1392)
Sweden
(N=1738)
UK
(N=1795)
Mean
(Std.Dev.)
Mean
(Std.Dev.)
Mean
(Std.Dev.)
Mean
(Std.Dev.)
Mean
(Std.Dev.)
Perceived
welfare
threat
3.10 (0.70) 3.27 (0.67) 2.93 (0.63) 2.79 (0.61) 3.30 (0.68)
Education 12.27
(2.90)
12.93
(3.33)
13.24
(3.60)
11.89
(3.40)
12.55
(3.16)
ISEI 43.32
(13.97)
44.21
(15.20)
41.92
(16.81)
42.90
(16.84)
42.36
(16.84)
Male 0.48 (0.50) 0.48 (0.50) 0.52 (0.50) 0.51 (0.50) 0.49 (0.50)
Income 2,327
(1,311)
2,659
(1,646)
3,316
(1,870)
2,505
(1,371)
3,207
(2,312)
Age 15-25 0.15 (0.35) 0.13 (0.34) 0.12 (0.33) 0.14 (0.35) 0.13 (0.34)
Age 26 - 55 0.59 (0.49) 0.52 (0.50) 0.54 (0.50) 0.50 (0.50) 0.50 (0.50)
Age 56 + 0.27 (0.44) 0.35 (0.48) 0.33 (0.47) 0.36 (0.48) 0.36 (0.48)
Church
attendance
- once a
month
0.35 (0.48) 0.19 (0.39) 0.09 (0.28) 0.11 (0.31) 0.16 (0.36)
- rarely 0.38 (0.49) 0.44 (0.50) 0.52 (0.50) 0.51 (0.50) 0.31 (0.46)
- never 0.26 (0.44) 0.37 (0.48) 0.39 (0.49) 0.38 (0.48) 0.54 (0.50)
Note: Means for the categorical variables show the proportions of the categories in the
sample.
Source: ESS 2002/2003, authors computations
Table 2A: Majoritys image of the ethnic and economic background of immigrants in their
country
Race/ethnic
background of mostimmigrants
Austria
N=1967
Germany
N=2599
Denmark
N=1392
Sweden
N=1738
UK
N=1795
Same as majority 5% 10% 5% 15% 4%
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Different than
majority
73% 68% 70% 46% 69%
Half and half 22% 22% 25% 40% 27%
Economic background
of most immigrants
from Europe
Richer countries 2% 1% 3% 8% 3%
Poorer countries 80% 91% 66% 60% 76%
Half and half 18% 8% 31% 32% 21%
Economic background
of most immigrants
from outside Europe
Richer countries 2% 1% 1% 4% 2%
Poorer countries 84% 93% 88% 81% 80%
Half and half 14% 5% 11% 15% 18%
Source: ESS 2002/2003, authors computations
Table 3A: Parameter estimates from separate ordinary least square regression analyses of
exclusionism of immigrants
Independent
variables
Austria
(N=1559)
Germany
(N=2207)
Denmark
(N=1264)
Sweden
(N=1600)
UK
(N=1708)
Perceived welfare
threat
0.371**
(0.023)
B=0.383
0.441**
(0.019)
B=0.440
0.402**
(0.026)
B=0.381
0.493**
(0.023)
B=0.460
0.560**
(0.022)
B=0.519
Education -0.028**
(0.006)
B=-0.119
-0.024**
(0.005)
B=-0.117
-0.041**
(0.006)
B=-0.227
-0.024**
(0.005)
B=-0.122
-0.024**
(0.005)
B=-0.103
Age
(ref: 26 - 55)
- 15 - 25 -0.227**
(0.048)
B=-0.108
-0.197**
(0.048)
B=-0.076
-0.192**
(0.054)
B=-0.091
-0.074
(0.043)
B=-0.038
-0.158**
(0.046)
B=-0.070
- 56 + 0.115**
(0.036)
B=0.075
0.060*
(0.027)
B=0.043
-0.022
(0.037)
B=-0.016
0.125**
(0.034)
B=-0.092
0.118**
(0.033)
B=0.078
Male (ref. =
female)
-0.006
(0.030)
B=-0.005
0.055*
(0.040)
B=0.021
0.076*
(0.032)
B=0.058
-0.007
(0.006)
B=-0.019
-0.067*
(0.029)
B=-0.046
Income -0.000002
(0.00001)
B=-0.004
-0.00001
(0.000008)
B=-0.027
-0.00001
(0.00001)
B=-0.032
-0.00001
(0.00001)
B=-0.022
-0.00001
(0.00001)
B=-0.039
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ISEI 0.001
(0.001)
B=-0.018
-0.003**
(0.001)
B=-0.069
-0.001
(-0.001)
B=-0.030
-0.003**
(0.001)
B=-0.068
-0.001
(0.001)
B=-0.031
Church attendance
(ref.= never)
- once a month 0.161**
(0.039)
B=0.116
-0.047
(0.035)
B=-0.027
-0.010
(0.062)
B=-0.004
-0.079
(0.048)
B=-0.037
-0.134**
(0.042)
B=-0.067
- rarely 0.146**
(0.038)
B=0.106
-0.034
(0.027)
B=-0.025
0.057
(0.034)
B=0.043
0.013
(0.029)
B=0.010
-0.027
(0.032)
B=-0.017
Intercept 1.774**
(0.119)
1.369**
(0.102)
1.777**
(0.120)
0.968**
(0.105)
1.162**
(0.109)
Adjusted R 0.239 0.293 0.264 0.310 0.368
Note: **parameter estimate is significant at the 1% level (p-value < 0.01); *parameter
estimate is significant at the 5% level (p-value < 0.05). Numbers in parentheses are
standard errors.
Source: ESS 2002/2003, authors computations
Table 4A: Parameter estimates from separate ordinary least square regression analysis of
exclusionism of immigrants,
including interaction with age
Independent
variables
Austria
(N=1559)
Germany
(N=2207)
Denmark
(N=1264)
Sweden
(N=1600)
UK
(N=1708)
Perceived welfare
threat
0.384**
(0.028)
0.459**
(0.025)
0.434**
(0.035)
0.558**
(0.032)
0.574**
(0.029)
Education -0.028**
(0.006)
-0.024**
(0.005)
-0.041**
(0.006)
-0.024**
(0.005)
-0.023**
(0.005)
Age (ref: 26 - 55)
- 15 25 -0.572**
(0.223)
-0.583*
(0.260)
-0.036**
(0.268)
-0.024
(0.199)
-0.596**
(0.235)
- 56 + 0.406**
(0.160)
0.299*
(0.130)
-0.235
(0.166)
0.632**
(0.140)
0.382*
(0.153)
Welfare threat x
younger age
0.117
(0.073)
0.116
(0.077)
-0.054
(0.089)
-0.019
(0.070)
-0.132
(0.070)
Welfare threat x
older age
-0.091
(0.049)
-0.072
(0.038)
-0.072
(0.055)
-0.181**
(0.049)
-0.078
(0.045)
Male (ref. =female)
-0.007(0.030)
0.052*(0.025)
0.078*(0.032)
-0.013(0.027)
-0.070*(0.029)
Income -0.000003
(0.00001)
-0.00001
(0.00001)
-0.00001
(0.00001)
-0.00001
(0.00001)
-0.00001
(0.00001)
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ISEI -0.001
(0.001)
-0.003**
(0.001)
-0.001
(-0.001)
-0.003**
(0.001)
-0.002
(0.001)
Church attendance
(ref.= never)
- once a month 0.157**
(0.038)
-0.046
(0.035)
-0.005
(0.062)
-0.081
(0.048)
-0.136**
(0.042)
- rarely 0.139**
(0.038)
-0.034
(0.027)
0.058
(0.034)
0.015
(0.029)
-0.032
(0.032)
Intercept 1.745**
(0.133)
1.312**
(0.116)
1.683**
(0.139)
0.799**
(0.118)
1.112**
(0.129)
Adjusted R 0.242 0.294 0.263 0.316 0.371
Note: **parameter estimate is significant at the 1% level (p-value < 0.01); *parameter
estimate is significant at the 5% level (p-value < 0.05). Numbers in parentheses are
standard errors.
Source: ESS 2002/2003, authors computations
Table 5A: Selected country-level characteristics
Country Proportion of
non-Western[24]
non-nationals in
population
(2000)[25]
Average annual
number of
asylum
applications per
1,000 capita
(2001-2002)[26]
Average annual
net migration
per 1,000 capita
(1995-2000)[27]
Unemployment
rate
(2002)[28]
Austria 10.2 % 4.27 0.6 4.2 %
Germany 6.1 % 1.09 2.3 8.2 %
Denmark 4.9 % 1.73 2.7 4.6 %
Sweden 7.7 % 3.18 1.0 4.9 %
UK 3.4 % 1.89 1.6 5.1 %
Source: Different sources; see the footnote
The highest proportion of non-Western non-nationals in the total population can be
found in Austria (10.2%), followed by Sweden (7.7%) and Germany (6.1%). In Denmark
and the United Kingdom, the proportion of non-Western non-nationals in the population
(4.9%, 3.4% respectively) is the lowest among those five countries. Austria also receives
the highest average number of asylum application per year (4.27), assessed per 1,000
inhabitants. The second country with the highest number of asylum seekers is Sweden with
3.18 asylum applications per 1,000 capita per year. Those countries are followed by the
United Kingdom with 1.89 asylum applications and Denmark with 1.73 asylum applications
per 1,000 capita per year. Germany has the lowest yearly number of asylum seekers per1,000 inhabitants among all those countries. However, Germany and Denmark are countries
with the highest yearly net positive migration per 1,000 inhabitants (2.3, 2.7). The United
Kingdom follows with 1.6 immigrants and Sweden with 1 immigrant per 1,000 capita per
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year. Austria has the lowest number of immigrants per 1,000 capita per year (0.6). Finally,
Germany has rather high unemployment rate (8.2%) compared to the other countries,
where the unemployment is on a similar level: 5.1% in the United Kingdom, 4.9% in
Sweden, 4.6% in Denmark, and 4.2% in Austria.
A2. Annex 2: Items measuring the key concepts (ESS 2002/2003questionnaire)
Exclusionism of immigrants
(1) To what extent do you think (country) should allow people of a different race or
ethnic group as most (country) people to come and live here?[29]
(2) To what extent do you think (country) should allow people form poorer countries
in Europe to come and live here?
(3) To what extent do you think (country) should allow people from poorer countries
outside Europe to come and live here?
The reliability of the scale exclusionism of immigrants is high in all the countries (Cronbach
alpha higher than 0.9).
Perceived welfare threat
(1) Would you say that people who come to live here generally take jobs away from
the workers in (country) or generally help create new jobs?
(2) Most of the people who come to live here work and pay taxes. They also usehealth and welfare services. On balance, do you think people who come here take out more
than they put in or put in more than they take out?
(3) Would you say that it is generally bad or good for (country)s economy that people
come to live here from other countries?[30]
(4) How much do you agree or disagree that average wages and salaries are generally
brought down by people coming to live and work here?
(5) How much do you agree or disagree that people who come to live and work here
generally harm the economic prospects of the poor more than the rich?
The reliability of the scaleperceived welfare threatis good: Cronbach alpha is 0.7 in
Austria, Denmark and Sweden and 0.8 in Germany and the United Kingdom.
A3. Annex 3: Definition of immigrants generations and the native
population in the sample
In scientific literature, the immigrants generations are usually defined as follows: first
generation immigrants are those who came to live in a country but they were born in
another country (Saucedo, White, Glick, 2003; Fertig, Schmidt, 2001), 1.5 generation
immigrants are defined as those who immigrated in a country with their parents in their
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early life, and grown up there (Choi, Cranley, Nichols, 2001),second generation immigrants
are those who were born in the country their parent(s) immigrated into (Strelitz, 2004;
Saucedo, White, Glick, 2003; Choi, Cranley, Nichols, 2001; Fertig, Schmidt, 2001).
Ramakrishnan (2004), giving the example of the immigrants into the United States, claims
that in most studies those who were born in the U.S., and at least one of their parents were
born outside the U.S are also defined as second generation immigrants. However, the author
labels those as the 2.5 generation immigrants. The third generation immigrants are the
descendants of the second generation (Ramakrishnan, 2004; Choi, Cranley, Nichols, 2001).
To find an explicit definition of the native is rather difficult and in the scientific
studies they are often contrasted to the immigrants generations mentioned above. In the
paper, I use a term native population to refer to those who are not the first, 1.5, and
second generation immigrants, thus to those who were born in the respective country and at
least one of their parents as well. I do not include the second generation immigrants,
because even if they were born in the country their parents immigrated into, they are often
raised in the immigrants communities, they might perceive themselves as immigrants, and
they are often perceived as immigrants by the non-immigrant population. Ireland says about
the immigrants from Southern Europe to Western Europe: Due to persistent discrepancies
between Southern Europeans socioeconomic, cultural, and political situation and that of
the native stock residents, even second- and third- generation Italians, Iberians, and Greeks
have been considered part of the immigrants-origin population, notwithstanding their
ancestral homelands membership in the European Union and new status as countries of
immigration on their own right (Ireland, 2004: 2). I think this idea can be broadened also
to other groups of immigrants in Western Europe, even if there are undoubtedly differencesbetween the immigrants groups of different origin. Whether the exclusionism of
immigrants among the population of immigrant origin is stronger, or weaker, or the same as
among the population of non-immigrant origin is disputable, but it is behind the scope of the
present research to deal with this question.
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home list theses contence previous next
[1] Geddes (2003a: 17) recognizes the primary migration between 1950s and thebeginning of 1970s with workers invited to help with European economic reconstruction,
followed by family migration for the purpose of family reunification with those workers,
and finally, asylum and illegal migration accelerated in the 1990s, as the three main
periods of immigration into Europe.
[2] Wallace (1995: 5) defines xenophobia as a reaction to foreigners, while racism as a
reaction to a generic group which have been racialised.
[3] In the choice of the countries for comparison also the data quality was taken into
account.
[4]http://ess.nsd.uib.no/2003_Fworksummary.jsp
[5] Final report: Sampling for the European Social Survey,
http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/
[6] Weighting European Social Survey Data, http://ess.nsd.uib.no/2003_documentation.jsp
[7] See Annex 3A for more information about the definition of the immigrantsgenerations
and the native population.
[8] The items forming the key scales as well as their reliability coefficients are presented in
the Annex A2.
[9] The only exception is Sweden where less than half of the respondents perceived the
immigrants having different race or ethnic origin.
[10] Age is recoded into three categories, 15-25, 26-55, 56+, since the relationship with
perceived welfare threat is not linear and thus cannot be included in OLS regression.
Moreover, I want to separate the effects for the categories of the population in education,
working population and the older population that tend to be more dependent on the social
security (the actual retirement age in Europe is often below 60).
[11] Measured in years of total education
[12] Due to the large number of missing data on income in the data set in most of the
countries (36% in Austria, 21% in Germany, 16% in the United Kingdom, 14% in Denmark
and 6.5% in Sweden), the missing values are replaced with the mean income of the
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countries in order to avoid loosing too many cases for the regression analysis. Mean
imputation can be problematic because it decreases the variance, and thus low significance
levels are reached more easily. However, in the regression analysis, I checked for the
differences in the results both with the original variable and with the variable with replaced
missing values and the results did not differ markedly.
[13] ISEI was created using a conversion tool of Ganzeboom and Treiman (1996b) that
allow converting the ISCO-88 Standard Occupational Classification into International Socio-
Economic Index of Occupational Status. This index can be perceived as measuring the
attributes of occupations that convert persons education into income and it is measured on
a scale from 16 to 90 (Ganzeboom, Treiman (1996a).
[14] I wanted to control for religious affiliation but there is high non-response on this
variable and some religious denomination are not represented in some countries while they
are very common in the others (e.g. in Sweden there are no Catholics in the sample). Thus, I
chose to control for church attendance; this variable has three categories: going to church at
least once a month (1), rarely (2), never (3)
[15] Those characteristics for the selected countries are presented in the Annex, Table 5A
[16] Unemployment is strongly correlated with number of asylum applications (-0.752,
p
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[22] Only the interactions that were statistically significant at least at one of the compared
countries are shown.
[23] The interaction between age and perceived welfare threat explains additional 6% of
the variance of the exclusionism of immigrants.
[24] Citizens of countries except for EU-15 countries, EFTA countries, USA, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand (Coenders, Lubbers, Scheppers, 2003b: 86)
[25] Source: Eurostat, Office for National Statistics (UK), Statistisches Bundesamt
(Germany) in Coenders, Lubbers, Scheppers (2003b: 86)
[26] Source: UNHCR and Eurostat in Coenders, Lubbers, Scheppers (2003b: 86)
[27] Source: UN Population Division (2002). Net migration is the annual number of
immigrants less the annual number of emigrants (including both citizens and non-citizens).
The rate is computed as the net number of migrants, divided by the average population of
the receiving country, expressed per 1,000 population of the country.
http://www.unpopulation.org
[28] Source: Eurostat (2002). The unemployment rate is the proportion of unemployed
persons in total labour force. http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/
[29] The answer was recoded as follows: 4=allow many to come and live here; 3=allow
some; 2=allow a few; 1=allow none.
[30] Items 1 to 3 were recoded from the 11 point scale into the 5 point scale in order to
allow combining them with items 4 and 5 that were measured on the 5 point scale.
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