Personal and contextual foundations of welfare chauvinism in Western Europe

Abstract

Welfare chauvinism in the context of immigration refers to the belief that immigrants are "free-riders" who receive social benefits without having contributed adequately. This chapter reviews personal and contextual foundations of welfare chauvinistic beliefs in immigrant-receiving societies in Western Europe. In doing so, we focus on matters related to the conceptualization and measurement of welfare chauvinistic attitudes. We then review theoretical mechanisms and empirical evidence on individual-level factors that underlie welfare chauvinistic beliefs, including individuals' social status, perceived deprivation, as well as value-related orientations. Subsequent to that, we look at contextual determinants such as the presence of immigrants and asylum-seekers, as well as economic, political and institutional factors. Finally, we conduct an empirical analysis using two waves of the European Social Survey merged with contextual country-level information on economic, immigration-related, and policy-related factors.