Immigration and Welfare Attitudes: Do Personal Interactions Matter?

• In Event: Immigration and Migration Policies: Emerging Issues

Abstract

Previous research suggests that citizens’ perceptions of the influx and existence of foreign-born residents influence and perhaps undermine support for the welfare state. However, findings on the effect of personal exposure to immigrant populations are inconsistent. We argue that this is because existing work does not distinguish between different types of interactions between natives and immigrants. Using original survey experiments embedded in the 2022 and 2023 Cooperative Election Study, we explore how personal interactions with immigrants affect citizens’ welfare attitudes. We find that frequent mere exposure has a dampening effect on respondents’ welfare support, but frequent actual contact, in the form of conversations, has a positive effect on individuals’ perspectives on welfare programs. However, there is no clear evidence that the effects of information about immigrants’ welfare eligibility are conditional on these interactions, although the eligibility of documented immigrants significantly enhances respondents’ welfare support more than the eligibility of all immigrants.

Authors

• Hang Qi, University of Macau

• Jake Haselswerdt, University of Missouri, Columbia