In this article, we explore the attitudinal basis of the immigration issue and the German welfare state. Scholars have shown that immigration influences social welfare attitudes by the immigration rate,1 a person's socioeconomic background,2 and their logic of deservingness.3 The more negative immigration attitudes a person has, the more negative social welfare attitudes they have. From this perspective, the relationship between the immigration issue and social welfare attitude is the starting point for our study.
Political placement is a key factor in explaining different social welfare attitudes. Many researchers have detected that right-wing people have more negative attitudes toward social welfare than do right-wing.4 On the other hand, partisanship does not predict the immigration policy of the government; for example, leftist governments have been as strict about immigration control as rightist.5 In addition, the political placement affects peoples’ immigration attitudes: left-wing people have more positive attitudes toward immigration than do right-wing.6 Further, regions of Eastern and Western Germany have been associated with divergent relationships concerning social expenditures7 and taxation and redistribution.8 Moreover, Western Germany has a stronger support of the welfare state compared to Eastern.9
Eastern and Western Germany have been affected differently regarding immigration attitudes, and the Eastern German population has a higher percentage of attitudes leaning toward anti-immigration than the Western does.10 On the other hand, anti-immigration attitudes affect social welfare attitudes in a negative way—more so in Eastern Germany than Western11—but there have also been opposite results.12
Nowadays, the role of the immigration issue is emphasized in the public discussion on social policy, but there are controversial views regarding its effect on the attitudinal basis of German society.13 This article explores whether attitudes toward social welfare and immigration are associated, and especially whether such a connection depends on political opinion and/or the regional Eastern-Western factor. The data was retrieved from Round 8 of the European Social Survey, which covers face-to-face interviews from 23 countries in 2016. For this study, only the German data (N = 2852) was used.
Theoretical Background
German Attitudes toward Social Welfare
According to the classic definition of Gosta Esping-Andersen, Germany belongs to the typology of a Corporatist welfare regime, featured also as a Conservative welfare state model,14 which underlines the citizens’ active role in the labor market, meaning that the employed citizens benefit more from the welfare state. In this sense, the purpose of the redistribution has not been reducing the citizens’ income differences as much as, for instance, in the Nordic welfare states.15 However, Germany's social policy has shifted from consumption (unemployment security) to enabling investments (family policy, education, pensions) in the 2010s.16
Germans have been reported as supporting the strong welfare state.17 Further, Katrin Prinzen has shown that Germans prefer state-based spending for older people.18 In turn, Elias Naumann notes that Germans associate welfare state support with attitudes about taxation. Germans supported state spending on pensions and health care, but, for example, the support of spending on childcare and social investment is not as solid.19 Social investments seek to support opportunities rather than provide direct social benefits. On the other hand, citizens do not seem to be in favor of cutting social benefits and moving resources to social investments in peoples’ skills and learning, for example. Silja Häusermann et al. found that the attitudes of the traditional working and middle classes differ in relation to the policies of social investments and social consumption.20 The middle class emphasizes social investments more than the working class.
Citizens’ attitudes toward social consumption such as social security expenditures follow their political opinions. Björn Bremer and Reto Bürgisser have found that the center-right is more against passive social benefits such as unemployment and old age pensions than the center-left.21 However, both extremes of the political spectrum are less against the passive benefits than others, that is, they are reluctant to reduce unemployment benefits. Matthias Enggist Michael and Pinggera have found that the radical right supports social investments in old age pensions, and takes a fairly clear supportive stance on traditional social policy consumption issues such as the social security system but opposes the recalibration of social policy: the change in welfare state system from bases of social secure to social investment.22 For example, liberal parties such as the Greens prefer more social investment policy, according to Enggist and Pinggera.23 However, Maurius Busemeyer et al. argue that the radical right does not support the traditional welfare state, although it does partly support its principles such as the work-based pension system.24
The political parties aim to find a balance between political principles and public opinion, and according to Tarik Abou-Chadi and Ellen Immergut, their strategy depends on the electoral situation.25 As this tightens, the left-wing governments are willing to prioritize social investments by reducing the generosity of pension rights in expanding new social risk programs, while the center-right governments avoid reducing pension rights and pension spending. Further, Pinggera has examined whether parties place more emphasis on public opinion or that of traditional supporters, and found that the radical right emphasizes the opinion of supporters at the expense of public opinion; but the left apparently has a focus appears on public opinion.26
Social Welfare and the Immigration Issue
Many recent studies have shown that immigration is a new and significant factor explaining citizen's social welfare attitudes. For instance, Brian Burgoon and Matthijs Rooduijin discuss the “immigrationization of welfare policy,” which includes a strong connection between attitudes toward immigration and welfare redistribution.27 As with all of Europe, immigration is a central political issue in Germany. Based on historical analysis, Markus Crepaz and Regan Damron suggest that the more comprehensive the welfare state is, the more tolerant people are with immigration, indicating that modern and pioneer welfare states should have a similar ability to transcend ethnic divisions.28 However, immigration has become a key social policy issue in recent years. Based on the literature, a complex and multidimensional relationship exists between welfare state support and the immigration attitude because people have different motives for and against supporting the welfare state and immigration. The association of the immigration issue and social welfare can be explained in at least three different ways.
First, according to the welfare magnet hypothesis, high social benefits encourage immigrants to move to a particular country, leading to reserved attitudes among the native people.29 It is assumed that the tax-funded welfare states have more power of magnetism than the liberal welfare states do,30 because of their generous social policy but also because the EU principle of free movement “opens the door to magnetism.”31 On the other hand, the EU member states have created various bureaucratic administrative barriers that contribute to slowing down and preventing welfare magnetism.32 However, Achim Goerres et al. has found that Germans are not concerned about immigration as a threat to welfare state, as are Norwegians and Swedish populations, although Germans have more concerns regarding the sustainability of the welfare state in general.33
Alexander Schmidt-Catran and Dennis Spies have found that the native citizens become reluctant to support social welfare programs as the proportion of immigrants increases at the regional level.34 This effect is particularly strong in the early stages of immigration. The attitude is associated with the general economic situation: the higher the unemployment rate, the more negative attitudes the native people have. Also, Maureen Eger and Nate Breznau have found a negative relationship between the proportion of foreign-born citizens and the support of the welfare state.35 However, the size of the immigrant population does not diminish support for immigrants’ social rights. Further, Christian Czymara has detected that citizens’ immigration attitudes become negative according to the notable demographic changes, especially among conservative Europeans and people who do not trust EU politics.36
Second, the association of immigration and social welfare attitude is explained by the self-interest theory. It is assumed that people whose income does not cover their basic needs are more likely to defend social welfare than people without economic difficulties.37 However, in the case of immigration, popular attitudes seem to be different. According to Elias Naumann and Lukas Stötzer, people with poor labor market status are not willing to support the redistributive social policy in the face of immigration.38 Further, those with high incomes are also willing to withdraw from social responsibility. The disadvantaged section of the population may view immigrants as a threat to their own social welfare, and the wealthy, in turn, may see immigration as a threat that raises taxes. The effect of immigration on social welfare attitudes impacts image policy, at least in part. Sabina Avdagic and Lee Savage argue that the negative narrative frameworks of immigration weaken the support of the welfare state, while the positive frameworks have little or no impact.39 Also, the negative image of immigration and anti-welfare state attitudes leads to opposition against the expenditure of the social welfare state, even if people favor immigration.40
Third, the attitudes toward social welfare are approached from the perspective of deservingness. Attitude studies in the literature have shown that citizens value the right of different target groups to receive state support in different ways. For example, pensioner entitlement to social assistance is perceived as more important than long-term unemployed entitlement. The positions of different social groups are different in terms of how citizens perceive social responsibility to help them. Immigrants have been seen as the least deserving group of social welfare. According to Tina Goldschmidt, people with ethnic prejudices are more likely to oppose social welfare that is primarily means-tested and benefits a large number of immigrants.41 According to Enggist, benefits targeted at immigrants are seen as less desirable than, for example, benefits for the unemployed.42 Also, the social background of native citizens affects their way of perceiving the immigrants as less deserving.43 Shushanik Margaryan et al. have discovered that education level is associated with attitudes toward immigrants.44 The more educated a person is, the more positive their thinking is about immigration. Education level, especially for mothers, affects the descendants’ attitudes toward immigration.45
In addition, the political placement and partisanship shapes citizens’ opinions on immigration and social welfare. Voters in right-wing populist parties oppose the deservingness of immigrants the most,46 but the association is not so straightforward.47 In turn, voters of the Green Party are the strongest supporters of immigrants’ rights to social welfare.48 However, it has been noted that left-wing governments are not as permissive as would be expected.49 The political presence of radical right-wing parties has been affected by stricter immigration policies of left-wing governments, but sometimes in linear or unnecessary ways.50 On the other hand, left-wing governments have related more positively to immigration than have right-wing,51 and leftists are more likely to resist any lessening of immigration.52 In turn, regarding opposite immigration attitudes, the foreign workforce inflow is a more important factor than a partisanship.53
It has been noted that the old and the new leftist parties have differences regarding immigration. New parties, like the Greens, have more of a multicultural agenda.54 In turn, with old leftist parties, as with Sweden, the Social Democratic Party has been putting strict immigration policies into practice. The reason for this policy could be the party's strategy to stay among popular parties and, on the other hand, to advocate traditional blue-collar workers.55 In turn, the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats tightened their immigration policy in Germany in the 1980s, along with the European change of political atmosphere56 and the reduced inflow of immigrants under left-wing governments.57 The Social Democrats and Christian Democrats changed their immigration policies more permissively at the turn of the millennium.58 Boris Podobnik et al. note that the old democracies in Europe such as Germany and former socialist countries such as Poland have different immigration policies.59 Germany has had more permissive immigration policies than has Poland, where citizens have supported the government's strict immigration policies. Notwithstanding, the voting of right-wing parties increased a few years after the 2015–2016 inflow of refugees to Germany and Sweden.60 Further, Daniel Westlake notes that radical right parties have led the political atmosphere toward more opposite immigration policy among central-left and central-right parties.61
The Regional Basis of Attitudes: Eastern and Western Germany
The reunification process has been a key factor shaping German society, both in politics and in the country's systems but also in the attitudes of citizens. However, Stefan Svallfors shows that the attitudinal basis of Eastern and Western Germany had already converged significantly during the first 15 years of the integration process (1990–2006).62 In Western Germany, attitudes toward the social responsibility of the state had been stable, while attitudes in Eastern Germany had converged with those of Western Germany. However, comparisons between different birth cohorts showed that there were still significant differences in attitudes between former East and West Germany, especially among those citizens who were adults at the time of reunification, but the differences were quite small among those who were children in 1989.
On the other hand, the opposite results have also been reported. For example, Edeltraud Roller has found that support for the welfare state is lower in Eastern than in Western Germany.63 However, attitudes toward welfare state programs aimed at reducing income disparities prove to be a significant factor in Eastern and Western Germany, but reliance on government policy has been more prevalent in Eastern Germany, though has reduced citizens’ confidence in the welfare state. Hans-Jürgen Andreß and Thorsten Heien have found that at the start of the twenty-first century, Western and Eastern Germans had differences regarding welfare state support.64 Eastern Germans supported more welfare state than did Western. In addition, Christian Pfarr et al. has found that Eastern Germans want more income redistribution than do Western but, on the other hand, are reluctant to pay more taxes.65
Further, Schmidt-Catran and Spies argue that regional differences in immigration explain the differences in social welfare attitudes.66 In contrast, Katrin Auspurg et al. have found no evidence that a growing number of foreigners would weaken support for social benefits, or that this relationship would be impacted by the level of regional unemployment.67 In addition, regional differences in attitudes toward immigration alone have been observed. Many studies have shown that Eastern Germans are more critical toward immigration than Western. Alessandro Sola has detected that the 2015 refugee crisis increased the critical attitudes toward immigration among the German population, but the criticality was greater in Eastern Germany.68 Jannes Jacobsen et al. confirms that the Eastern German population is distinctly more concerned about immigration compared to the Western.69 Eastern Germans are more likely to support radical right-wing parties than are Western.70 Studies find that the radical right parties such as AfD have negative opinions toward immigration, which increased the party's support in the federal elections in the 2010s. However, Marko Grdešić notes that Eastern Germans have more positive thoughts on immigrants as a part of social welfare than do Western, and the radical right voting does not predict the attitudes of the latter.71 This could mean that negative immigration attitudes do not associate to partisan preferences as would be expected.
Research Question, Data, and Methodology
Hypotheses
Social welfare research has shown that the more negative attitudes toward immigration there are, the more negative attitudes toward social welfare there will be.72 On the other hand, immigration does not strongly affect social welfare attitudes.73 Further, political placement is found to be a strong factor in changing peoples’ support toward social welfare and immigration.74 Leftists tend to support more permissive immigration and social welfare policy than do rightists.75 In addition, regions shape citizens’ attitudes on immigration and social welfare.76 Because the association between attitudes toward social welfare and immigration are quite complex, we focus our study on interactions between the two, to capture hidden relationships behind the association. Based on empirical research, we present the following hypotheses:
H1: The more negative the attitude toward immigration that people have, the more negative their social welfare attitude will become.
H2a: Peoples’ political placement affects their social welfare attitudes: rightists have more negative attitudes than do leftists, but (H2b), the increase of anti-immigration attitude does not affect (increase) anti–social welfare attitude as much among rightists as leftists.
H3a: The regional factor affects peoples’ social welfare attitudes: Eastern Germans have more negative social welfare attitudes than do Western, but (H3b) the increase in anti-immigration attitude does not affect (increase) anti–social welfare attitude as much in Eastern Germany as in Western.
Data and Methodology
The data was retrieved from Round 8 of the 2018 European Social Survey.77 The entire data set was gathered in 2016 and included 23 countries (44,387 respondents). The survey involves strict random probability sampling, a minimum target response rate of 70 percent, and rigorous translation protocols. The hourlong face-to-face interview includes questions on a variety of core topics that are repeated from previous rounds of the survey, and two modules developed for Round 8, including social welfare attitude. We used the German data (N = 2852).
This article focuses on social welfare attitude, which was operationalized through four questions on social benefits and services. The dependent variable consists of the following four items: “Social benefits and services in [country] place too much strain on the economy?” (Question E9), “Social benefits and services in [country] cost businesses too much in taxes and charges?” (Question E12), “Social benefits and services in [country] make people lazy?” (Question E13), and “Social benefits and services in [country] make people less willing to care for each another?” (Question E14). The scales of those four variables go negative to positive using the scale from one to five. Cronbach's alpha for the sum variable was 0.738. We changed the direction of the scale to negative so that we could capture the nature of the anti-welfare attitudes. Table 1 shows the distribution of the dependent variable.
Anti-welfare Attitudes (Frequency Distribution)
| Social Welfare Attitude | N | % | Mean | SD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 = Strongly agree | 84 | 3.0 | ||
| 2 | 680 | 24.0 | ||
| 3 | 1301 | 45.8 | 2.87 | 0.765 |
| 4 | 740 | 26.1 | ||
| 5 = Strongly disagree | 34 | 1.2 | ||
| Total | 2839 | 100.0 |
The selection of the independent variables was based on previous studies. Table 2 shows the distribution of the independent variables: age, gender, education level, income level, labor market status (employed and unemployed), political self-placement, immigration attitude, and Eastern or Western region. Immigration attitude was operationalized by creating a sum variable from three items: “Would you say it is generally bad or good for [country] 's economy when people from other countries come to live here?” [Question B41], “Would you say that [country] 's cultural life is generally undermined or enriched by people from other countries coming to live here?” (Question B42), and “Is [country] made a worse or better place to live by people coming from other countries to live here?” (Question B43). The scale of the variables was from zero to ten. Cronbach's alpha of the sum variable was 0.855. The direction of the scale has been changed so that it is positive to negative so we can measure the effect of anti-immigration attitudes. Age and education have been introduced as categorical variable to simplify their distribution. These variables have been used as continuous variables in the main analyses.
Independent Variables (Frequency Distribution)
| Categories | N | % | Mean | SD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age | Under 35 35–60 Above 60 |
752 1271 826 |
26.4 44.6 29.0 |
48.56 | 18.50 |
| Gender | 0 = Men 1 = Women |
1508 1344 |
52.9 47.1 |
0.47 | 0.50 |
| Education | Less than secondary level Secondary level Higher than secondary level |
74 1435 1325 |
2.6 50.6 46.8 |
4.25 | 1.71 |
| Labor market status, employed* | 0 = Other 1 = Employed |
1322 1520 |
46.5 53.5 |
0.53 | 0.50 |
| Labor market status, unemployed* | 0 = Other 1 = Unemployed |
2752 90 |
96.8 3.2 |
0.03 | 0.175 |
| Income | 1. decile 2. decile 3. decile 4. decile 5. decile 6. decile 7. decile 8. decile 9. decile 10. decile |
202 192 218 271 255 237 293 327 379 273 |
7.9 7.5 8.6 10.6 10.0 9.3 11.5 12.8 11.0 11.7 |
5.86 | 2.79 |
| Political placement, left-right | 0 = Left 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 = Right |
118 58 223 425 369 1023 241 185 88 12 23 |
4.3 2.1 8.1 15.4 13.3 37.0 8.7 6.7 3.2 0.4 0.8 |
4.40 | 1.85 |
| Immigration attitude | 0 = most positive attitudes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 = most negative attitudes |
107 219 404 494 532 478 273 148 107 56 26 |
3.8 7.7 14.2 17.4 16.8 19.0 9.6 5.2 3.8 2.0 0.9 |
4.29 | 2.09 |
| East-West region | 0 = West 1 = East |
1863 864 |
68.3 31.7 |
0.32 | 0.47 |
| Total | 2852 | 100.0 |
* The category “Other” includes education, retired, community or military service, permanently sick or disabled, housework (looking after children, others), other (and paid work or unemployed depending on which labor market status variables is at issue).
The main analysis was performed using linear regression analysis. A review of the assumptions for regression analysis found no interfering multicollinearity between the variables. The linear relationship between the response variable and the explanatory variables was examined using a residual pattern that showed no violations, and residuals were normally distributed. We have not standardized our variables before interaction analyses.78 The significance of the Trevor Breusch and Adrian Pagan test, describing the uniformity of variance of residual terms, was greater than 0.05, which means there is no problem with heteroskedasticity and the need for its correction in the main analyses.79 All analyses were performed in the SPSS 27 program,80 and the figures were generated in R software81 (R codes in Appendix 2). Every variable was recoded into a different variable before any descriptives or analyses so that the categories that do not appear in the scale (e.g., “Refusal”, “Don't know,” and “No answer”) have been removed as the missing values (in SPSS, called “system-missing” when recoding). Recoding has been made so we only get results based on the true scale.
The share of missing values for the dependent variable was 0.5 percent, and in the case of the independent variables it varied between 0.00 and 10.9 percent (see Appendix 1). According to Roderick Little's test, the data was not observed to be MCAR (missing completely at random, or ignorable) (chi-square = 44.668, DF = 8, Sig. = 0.000).82 However, most of missing data was in the income level variable, which is not a major one. Therefore, we did not use a multiple imputation for our data set. We have recognized that this decision causes the absence of cases in our ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses but makes our data set easier to study.
Results
The results of the linear regression analysis with the unstandardized and standardized β coefficients are presented in Table 3. The explanatory factors were added in four phases. Our main explanatory variables—anti-immigration attitudes, political placement, and region—were added into the first model. In Model 2, the socioeconomic factors were added into the previous model. In Model 3, interaction terms of immigration were added into the previous model. In Model 4, age and gender were added into the previous model. The data was weighted by a design weight before regression analyses.83
Linear regression models. Unstandardized β-value (Standardized β-value). Anti-welfare attitudes.
| Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | Model 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constant | 2.081a | 2.504a | 2.386a | 2.394a |
| Anti-immigration attitudes | 0.118 (0.317)a | 0.108 (0.291)a | 0.142 (0.383)a | 0.141 (0.380)a |
| Political placement | 0.067 (0.161)a | 0.059 (0.145)a | 0.111 (0.271)a | 0.107 (0.262)a |
| Region, West-East | −0.020 (−0.010) | −0.015 (−0.007) | 0.324 (0.159)a | 0.321 (0.157)a |
| Education | −0.078 (−0.177)a | −0.114 (−0.258)a | −0.116 (−0.262)a | |
| Income | 0.001 (0.005) | 0.000 (0.002) | 0.002 (0.008) | |
| Employed | 0.000 (0.000) | 0.004 (0.003) | 0.048 (0.032) | |
| Unemployed | −0.263 (−0.058)b | −0.241 (−0.053)b | −0.191 (0.042)c | |
| Interactions | ||||
| anti-immigration × placement | −0.013 (−0.245)a | −0.013 (−0.237)a | ||
| anti-immigration × region | −0.073 (−0.194)a | −0.074 (−0.196)a | ||
| anti-immigration × education | 0.010 (0.132)c | 0.010 (0.132)c | ||
| Gender | 0.017 (0.012) | |||
| Age | −0.004 (−0.100) | |||
| Age2 | 0.000 (0.151) | |||
| N | 2650 | 2367 | 2367 | 2367 |
| R2 (adj.) | 15.4 | 18.3 | 19.9 | 19.7 |
| SE of the estimate | 0.697 | 0.681 | 0.675 | 0.675 |
| F-test | 161.518a | 76.824a | 58.540a | 45.568a |
| Collinearity statistics? | 0.900, 1.111 | 0.784, 1.275 | 0.067, 14.820 | 0.26, 41.030 |
a p < .001, b p < 0.01, c p < 0.05
Data is weighted by design weight.
† Tolerance, VIF; In models 3 and 4, there are the high VIF-values (> 4.000) in interaction terms and variables that are included in the interactions (anti-immigration attitudes, political placement, region, and education). Also, the age variables have high VIF-values.
Regression Models
Model 1 shows that attitudes on anti-immigration and anti-welfare are statistically and significantly associated, so Hypothesis 1 is supported. Also, political placement was a statistically significant factor. The more to the right a person positions themself politically, the more they have anti-welfare attitudes, which is consistent with Hypothesis 2a. Overall, Model 1 shows that the more anti-immigration attitudes a person has and the more right-wing they are, the more likely it is that they have anti-welfare attitudes. Regarding the region, Western Germans have more negative welfare attitudes than do Eastern. However, the region factor is not statistically significant. In Model 2, when we added other demographic variables, anti-immigration attitudes and political placement maintained their significance, although the coefficients decreased in value slightly. Model 2 shows that the lower the education level of a person, or if their labor market status is other than unemployed, the more likely they are to have anti-welfare attitudes. Both explanatory variables are statistically significant. Two other variables (income level and the employed) are not statistically significant and do not have any effect on individuals’ anti-welfare attitudes (see Table 3). In Model 3, when we have added interaction terms of anti-immigration, we can see some changes in the variables. Region becomes statistically significant and positive: Eastern Germans have more negative welfare attitudes than do Western. The result is consistent with Hypothesis 3a. Anti-immigration attitudes, political placement, education, and unemployment maintain their significance. In other words, if the person has anti-immigration attitudes and is right-wing, lives in East-German, has a low education, and is not unemployedthey are more likely to have anti-welfare attitudes.
Interactions of anti-immigration attitudes toward political placement (β = −0.013) and region (β = −0.073) are negative and highly statistically significant. Regarding interaction toward education (β = 0.010), the variable is statistically significant and positive. We interpret these interaction terms more specifically later with figures. In the last model, there are few changes in the coefficients and no change in the significances, except on the labor market status of the unemployed. Women have more anti-welfare attitudes than men do, but the difference is practically negligible. Younger respondents are more likely to have anti-welfare attitudes than do older, but again the difference is practically negligible. Neither gender nor age are statistically significant variables, so they do not explain anti-welfare attitudes.
The coefficient of determination is between 15.4 and 19.9. This means that our models explain the individual's opinions about the anti-welfare attitudes at 15.5 to 19.9 percent. The figure is sufficiently high but should be higher if we aim to have stronger explanations about the structure of the peoples’ opinions, so we still miss 80.1 to 84.5 percent of explanatory factors of the individuals’ opinion behavior. The standard error of the estimate illustrates how well dispersed the residuals are in the regression models. A high value tells us that the residuals disperse widely, and the models are not accurate. Our models have quite low values (0.675–0.697), which confirm the explanatory power of the models. The models have statistically significant F-test results, so we can consider our models as reliable. The collinearity statistics describe how variables correlate with each other, that is, they do operate independently. In Models 1 and 2, the variables work independently because the values are very close to one. However, in Models 3 and 4, there appears to be multicollinearity because of interaction terms and the age variables.
Interaction Models
We have conducted our two interaction (i.e., moderation) analyses without mean-centering and correction for heteroskedasticity. First, we explored how political placement affects the relationship between anti-welfare and anti-immigration attitudes. In Figure 1, the lines demonstrate the values of the 16th, 50th, and 84th percentiles of the distribution of the anti-immigration attitudes, with respect to political placement. As can be seen in Figure 1, the effect of attitudes on anti-immigration on those of anti-welfare appears to be a function of political placement. Anti-immigration and anti-welfare attitudes are associated, but the increase of anti-immigration attitudes increases leftists’ anti–social welfare attitude more than rightists’. This means leftist respondents’ have more divergent attitudes about social benefits and services because of their immigration attitudes affecting their opinions. Thus, Hypothesis 2b is supported.
The Effect of Political Placement on the Relationship between Anti-Immigration and Anti–Social Welfare Attitudes (16th, 50th and 84th Percentiles of the Distribution)
Citation: German Politics and Society 41, 3; 10.3167/gps.2023.410304
We also probed the confidence interval range via the Johnson-Neyman technique, which is based on the analyses of standard error.84 The analysis revealed that the interaction is statistically significant at 99.2 percent of its range. Insignificant values located in the upper scale of political placement [values ≥ 9.2 in the scale from 1 (left) to 10 (right)]. The results mean that the interaction is reliable. The number of missing cases was 96.
Second, we explored how Eastern-Western regions affect the relationship between anti-welfare and anti-immigration attitudes (Figure 2). Anti-immigration and anti-welfare attitudes are associated, but the increase of anti-immigration attitudes increases the Western German anti–social welfare attitudes more than the Eastern. In other words, Western Germans have more mixed attitudes about social welfare than do Eastern, regarding the immigration attitudes. The result is consistent with Hypothesis 3b. We also probed the interaction's confidence interval range via the Johnson-Neyman technique. The analysis revealed that the interaction is statistically significant at 69.3 percent of its range. The insignificant values located in the middle of the scale can also be seen in the center of Figure 2, where the interaction lines of Western and Eastern Germans cross, that is, in the midrange there is no difference in anti-social attitude between the regions. The result shows the conditions where the interaction is reliable. The number of missing cases was 141.
The Effect of East-West Region on the Relationship between Anti- Immigration and Anti–Social Welfare Attitudes (16th, 50th and 84th Percentiles of the Distribution)
Citation: German Politics and Society 41, 3; 10.3167/gps.2023.410304
Discussion
The purpose of this article was to study the attitudinal basis of the association between the immigration issue and social welfare, and particularly whether it is conditional on political opinion and differences between the Eastern and Western regions. The following four issues can be addressed based on the results of the study.
First, we found that negative attitudes toward immigration and social welfare are associated. The more negative the attitudes are toward immigration, the more negative the attitudes are toward social welfare. The result is consistent with many recent studies arguing that immigration is a key factor in explaining citizen's social welfare attitudes. For instance, Burgoon and Rooduijin underline that the immigration issue is strongly associated with citizens’ views on welfare redistribution.85 Schmidt-Catran and Spies show that citizens become reserved toward social welfare programs as the proportion of immigrants increases.86 In this sense, as aforementioned, as with all of Europe, immigration is a central sociopolitical issue in Germany.
Second, we found that the voters on the political left have more positive attitudes toward social welfare than those on the right. The result is consistent with the history of social policy, as the welfare state has generally received strong support, especially from the left.87 Traditionally, the political parties on the left have advocated the political agenda for creating the mechanisms of social insurance and benefits that support the labor market security.88 In this sense, the welfare state has been perceived, above all, as the main political aim for the left.89 According to our study, this attitudinal basis still exists more in Germans’ political left compared to the right.90
However, it seems that the leftists’ attitudinal basis changes if studied in the context of immigration. When there is more detail, the study demonstrates that anti-immigration and anti-welfare attitudes are associated, but the increase of anti-immigration attitudes increases the leftists’ anti–social welfare attitudes more than the rightists. The immigration issue seems to be shaping the Left's attitudes slightly more toward social welfare than the right.
A potential explanation for the change in the left's attitudes is based on the transition of social policy from consumption (unemployment security) to enabling investments (family policy, education, pensions), a situation that is likely not fully accepted among all parts of the political left, and the same reserved attitude is associated with the immigration issue. This gives us an interesting perspective on the legitimacy of social policy in Germany, because the welfare state has been perceived, above all, as the main political aim for the left, although, of course, social policy has also been built by the right-wing parties.91 The result is inconsistent with the traditional theory of social policy, as the welfare state has generally received strong support, especially from the left.92 According to that study, it seems that a part of the left views immigration negatively, which also reduces their confidence in the principle of the welfare state.
Another potential explanation for the change in the left's attitudes is based on the transition of political parties on the left side of the political spectrum. Some researchers have detected that the new left parties have more positive attitudes toward immigration than do the old.93 For example, the social democratic parties have voting base among traditional blue-collar workers, but the parties have worried that their voters have negative attitude toward the immigration issue, so the parties have adopted stricter immigration policies.94 This mechanism could explain the differences within the spectrum of the political left in Germany. In this sense, we could say the political left is a heterogenous group with respect to the immigration issue, and the new leftist parties and ideologies have different views about the immigration issue compared to the old.95
Third, we explored the significance of the regional factor in the attitudinal basis of the German welfare state. According to the literature, Eastern and Western Germany have some differences related to the welfare state and the immigration issue.96 In general, the welfare state has been supported more in Western than in Eastern Germany. In this study, we did find differences between the regions regarding attitudes towards social welfare.97 The Western Germans are more likely to have positive attitudes toward social welfare than the Eastern.
Further, we also found that Western Germans are more concerned about immigration than are Eastern.98 Overall, the immigration issue seems to be a major factor in explaining the support of social welfare in the regional context. We found that the association between immigration and social welfare attitudes depends on the regional factor, but the immigration issue is more steeply associated with the social welfare attitude in Western Germany than in Eastern.99 The immigration issue is a more significant issue in Western Germany, and its effect on social welfare attitude is more profound than in Eastern. In other words, the immigration issue is divergent among Western Germans regarding social welfare than among Eastern. Regional differences have a long history. For instance, Sola argued that the differences between Eastern and Western Germany are a result of distinctions on history, immigration policy, and the resolutions of the refugee crisis.100
In addition, we can deduce that an individual is more likely to have negative social welfare attitudes when they have anti-immigration attitudes, positions themself on the political right, is not unemployed, has a lower level of education, and/or lives in Eastern Germany. Also, anti-immigration attitudes increase the likelihood of the individual having anti-welfare attitudes when regional and political placement affects that relationship. One potential explanation can be based on the self-interest theory, according to which, societal groups have different interests when supporting issues favorable to themselves. Based on the literature, the self-interest theory includes two explanation models that contradict each other. On the one hand, citizens may assess that it is in their interest to oppose, for instance, the immigration because it is seen as a threat to the existing level of social assistance. Immigration has been seen to decrease the level of social welfare and to increase taxation. The negative effect of immigration has been recognized among both low- and high-income citizens.101 On the other hand, the disadvantaged people may see that it is in their interest to support social welfare, although they might otherwise have negative attitudes toward the immigration issue. This means the unemployed individuals have an interest in supporting the government's redistribution as recipients,102 which buffers their negative attitude toward the immigration issue. We assume citizens in Eastern Germany assess their attitudes toward social welfare, in relation to their self-interest which modifies their potentially negative attitudes toward the immigration issue. We know the differences between Eastern and Western Germany have been converging.
There are also some limitations regarding this study. A controversial issue is related to our methodological choices. Methodologically, the confirmatory factor analysis is seen as a standard approach in politically oriented attitude studies,103 which would also have been an alternative methodological choice to the linear regression analysis. In our case, we use the OLS regression methodology, as do some other recent studies.104 Further, there are differences on the factual rates of immigration in different states within the democratic Federal Republic of Germany. The factual immigration rate has been found to be a significant factor for citizens’ opinions on social welfare, although there are results that the immigration rate does not explain Germans’ social welfare support.105 In this study, we focused our analysis on connections at the individual level and therefore did not include the factual immigration rate. Citizens have different attitudes toward the different dimensions of social welfare. They are positive about some of these welfare state dimensions and are more critical of other dimensions.106 In this sense, we underline that our results are tentative, and further research is needed in the future for verifying these results.
Conclusions
In this article, we argue that attitudes toward immigration and social welfare are associated. Although leftists have more positive attitudes toward social welfare than rightists, they are more divided by the immigration debate. In this sense, the immigration issue may challenge the traditional social policy and the agenda of the political left. In the same way, the effect of the immigration issue on social welfare attitude is conditional on the regional factor. Western Germany is slightly more divergent on the immigration issue, which may challenge the traditional Western German value basis of the welfare state. These results are different from those in most of the empirical studies. In this respect, the immigration issue should not be studied as a separate issue but rather as relating to other values and attitudes.
The results of the study are clear in themselves, but placing them in a societal context is a challenging task. It is noteworthy that the transition of social policy from consumption (unemployment security) to enabling investments (family policy, education, pensions) could not be considered in this study. Further, the explanatory factors such as the Eastern and Western regions, the immigration issue, and political opinions should be considered even more deeply than has been permitted in this study. Having different histories, Western and Eastern Germany have different development and cultural features.107 Western Germany is still wealthier than Eastern. On the other hand, the immigration rates are higher in Western Germany, so the differences in the attitudes may widen because of the number of immigrants in the region.108 Furthermore, Germany and Europe have been shaken by the rise of the populist radical-right parties. According to the literature, the radical-right parties have shaped the political atmosphere towards more opposite immigration policies, in the way that other parties have had to view their own immigration policy toward radical-right parties. Also, the old leftist parties have been strict toward immigration, but the new leftist parties have included multiculturalism in their agenda and could reshape the political environment. These political changes are noteworthy if they affect the future immigration policies by weakening social rights of immigrants.
Appendix 1: Missing Data
| N | Missing data (%) | |
| Dependent variable | ||
| Anti-welfare attitudes | 2849 | 3 (0.1) |
| Independent variables | ||
| Age | 2849 | 3 (0.1) |
| Gender | 2852 | 0 (0.0) |
| Income level | 2547 | 305 (10.7) |
| Education level | 2834 | 18 (0.6) |
| Employed | 2842 | 10 (0.4) |
| Unemployed | 2842 | 10 (0.4) |
| Political placement | 2765 | 87 (3.1) |
| Anti-immigration attitudes | 2844 | 8 (0.3) |
| West-East-region | 2727 | 125 (4.4) |
APPENDIX 2: R Codes
#Selecting and filtering data to Germany dataset:
germany_data <- essdata_new percent> percent
select(cntry, political, edugerm, welfattd, imattd, ess8_reg_dummy) percent> percent
filter(cntry = = “DE”)
#Analyzing moderation model (effect of political placement to immigration attitudes):
germany_process_result1 <- process(data = germany_data, y = “welfattd”, x = “imattd”, w = “political”, model = 1, jn = 1, plot = 1, save = 2)
##Plotting moderation model:
x <- germany_process_result1[34:42, 1]
y <- germany_process_result1[34:42, 3]
w <- germany_process_result1[34:42, 2]
par(family = “serif”)
plot(y = y, x = x, cex = 1.2, main = “Interaction 1, political placement (W)”, xlab = “Anti-immigration attitudes (X)”, ylab = “Anti-welfare attitudes (Y)”)
par(family = “serif”, mar = c(6, 5, 5, 4),xpd = FALSE)
legend.txt <- c(“Left”, “Right”)
legend(“topleft”, legend = legend.txt, cex = 1, lty = c(3,2), lwd = c(2,2), xpd = TRUE)
lines(x[w = = 3.00], y[w = = 3.00], lwd = 2, lty = 3, col = “black”)
lines(x[w = = 5.00], y[w = = 5.00], lwd = 2, lty = 1, col = “black”)
lines(x[w = = 6.00], y[w = = 6.00], lwd = 2, lty = 2, col = “black”)
mysubtitle = “Figure 1: The effect of political placement on the relationship between the anti-immigration and the anti–social welfare attitudes (16th, 50th, and 84th percentiles of the distribution).”
mtext(side = 3, line = -29, at = -0.07, adj = -0.39, cex = 0.7, mysubtitle)
#Analyzing moderation model (effect of region to immigration attitudes):
germany_process_result2 <- process(data = germany_data, y = “welfattd”, x = “imattd”, w = “ess8_reg_dummy”, model = 1, jn = 1, plot = 1, save = 2)
## Plotting moderation model:
x <- germany_process_result2[9:14, 1]
y <- germany_process_result2[9:14, 3]
w <- germany_process_result2[9:14, 2]
par(family = “serif”)
plot(y = y, x = x, cex = 1.2, main = “Interaction 2, West-East regions (W)”, xlab = “Anti-immigration attitudes (X)”, ylab = “Anti-welfare attitudes (Y)”)
legend.txt <- c(“West”,”East”)
par(family = “serif”, mar = c(6, 5, 5, 4),xpd = FALSE)
legend(“topleft”, legend = legend.txt, cex = 1, lty = c(1,3), lwd = c(2,3), xpd = TRUE)
lines(x[w = = 0.00], y[w = = 0.00], lwd = 2, col = “black”)
lines(x[w = = 1.00], y[w = = 1.00], lwd = 3, lty = 3, col = “black”)
mysubtitle = “Figure 1: The effect of East-West region on the relationship between the anti-immigration and the anti–social welfare attitudes (16th, 50th, and 84th percentiles of the distribution).”
mtext(side = 3, line = -29, at = -0.07, adj = -0.39, cex = 0.7, mysubtitle)
Source: Andrew F. Hayes, Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-based Approach (New York: Guilford Press, 2022), 301, 305. (The original codes have been modified for our research purposes.)
Notes
Alexander W. Schmidt-Catran and Dennis C. Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support in Germany,” American Sociological Review 81, no. 2 (2016): 242–261,
Elias Naumann and Lukas F. Stötzer, “Immigration and Support for Redistribution: Survey Experiments in Three European Countries,” West European Politics 41, no. 1 (2018): 80–101, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2017.1344040; Yul Derek Davids and Amanda Gouws, “Monitoring Perceptions of the Cause of Poverty in South Africa,” Social Indicators Research 110, no. 3 (2013): 1201–1221, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9980-9; Wim van Oorschot and Loek Halman, “Blame or Fate, Individual or Social? An International Comparison of Popular Explanations of Poverty,” European Societies 2, no. 1 (2000): 1–28.
Matthias Enggist, “Welfare Chauvinism—Who Cares? Evidence on Priorities and the Importance the Public Attributes to Expanding or Retrenching Welfare Entitlements of Immigrants,” paper presented at the 26th International Conference of Europeanists, Madrid, 20–22 June 2019; Carlo Michael Knotz, Mia Katharina Gandenberger, Flavia Fossati, and Giuliano Bonoli, “A Recast Framework for Welfare Deservingness Perceptions,” Social Indicators Research (2021): 1–17,
Björn Bremer and Reto Bürgisser, “Public Opinion on Welfare State Recalibration in Times of Austerity: Evidence from Survey Experiments,” Socrative 11, no. 1 (2023): 34–52,
Sonia Alonso and Sara Claro da Fonseca, “Immigration, Left and Right,” Party Politics 18, no. 6 (2012): 865–884,
Brian Burgoon and Matthijs Rooduijn, “‘Immigrationization’ of Welfare Politics? Anti-immigration and Welfare Attitudes in Context,” West European Politics 44, no. 2 (2021): 177–203,
Joakim Kulin and Bart Meuleman, “Human Values and Welfare State Support in Europe: An East-West Divide?” European Sociological Review 31, no. 4 (2015): 418–432,
Christian Pfarr, Andreas Schmid, and Volker Ulrich, “You Can't Always Get What You Want: East and West Germans’ Attitudes and Preferences Regarding the Welfare State,” Munich Personal RePEc Archive Paper no. 47240 (2013), https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2271607.
Stefan Svallfors, “Policy Feedback, Generational Replacement, and Attitudes to State Intervention: Eastern and Western Germany, 1990–2006,” European Political Science Review 2, no. 1 (2010): 119–135,
Alessandro Sola, “The 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany: Concerns about Immigration and Populism,” SOEPpaper no. 966 (2018), https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3169243; Jannes Jacobsen, Philipp Eisnecker, and Jürgen Schupp, “In 2016, Around One-Third of People in Germany Donated for Refugees and Ten Percent Helped Out on Site—Yet Concerns Are Mounting,” DIW Economic Bulletin 7, nos. 16–17 (2017): 165–176.
Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016).
Katrin Auspurg, Josef Brüderl, and Thomas Wöhler, “Does Immigration Reduce the Support for Welfare Spending? A Cautionary Tale on Spatial Panel Data Analysis,” American Sociological Review 84, no. 4 (2019): 754–763,
Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support,” 764–768 (2016); Auspurg et al., “Does Immigration Reduce”; Alexander W. Schmidt-Catran and Dennis S. Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support in Germany: Methodological Reevaluations and Substantive Conclusions,” American Sociological Review 84, no. 4 (2019): 764–768,
Gosta Esping-Andersen. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).
See, e.g., Daniel Glegg. “Central European Welfare States,” in Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State, ed. Bent Greve and Christian Aspalter (London: Routledge, 2019), 137–147.
See, e.g., ibid.; Christoph Burkhardt, Rose Martin, Steffen Mau, and Peter Taylor-Gooby, “Differing Notions of Social Welfare? Britain and Germany Compared,” Converging Worlds of Welfare? British and German Social Policy in the 21st Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 15–32; Katrin Prinzen. “Attitudes toward Intergenerational Redistribution in the Welfare State,” Kölner Zeitschrift fûr Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 67 (2015): 349–370,
Burkhardt et al., “Differing Notions.”
Prinzen, “Attitudes.”
Elias Naumann, “Tax Constraints, Social Policy Preferences and Support for Redistribution,” Societies 8, no. 3 (2018): art. 46,
Silja Häusermann, Michael Pinggera, Macarena Ares, and Matthias Enggist, “Class and Social Policy in the Knowledge Economy,” European Journal of Political Research 61, no. 2 (2019): 462–484,
Bremer and Bürgisser, “Public Opinion.”
Enggist and Pinggera, “Radical Right Parties.”
Ibid.
Maurius R. Busemeyer, Philip Rathgeb, and Alexander HJ Sahm. “Authoritarian Values and the Welfare State: The Social Policy Preferences of Radical Right Voters,” West European Politics 45, no. 1 (2021): 77–101,
Tarik Abou-Chadi and Ellen M. Immergut, “Recalibrating Social Protection: Electoral Competition and the New Partisan Politics of the Welfare State,” European Journal of Political Research 58, no. 2 (2019): 697–719,
Michael Pinggera. “Congruent with Whom? Parties’ Issue Emphases and Voter Preferences in Welfare Politics,” Journal of European Public Policy 28, no. 12 (2020): 1973–1992.
Burgoon and Rooduijn, “Immigrationization.”
Markus M. L. Crepaz and Regan Damron, “Constructing Tolerance: How the Welfare State Shapes Attitudes about Immigrants,” Comparative Political Studies 42, no. 3 (2009): 437–463,
Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen and Benjamin Werner, “No Welfare Magnets: Free Movement and Cross-border Welfare in Germany and Denmark Compared,” Journal of European Public Policy 26, no. 5 (2019): 637–655, https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3281685.
Martin Ruhs, “Is Unrestricted Immigration Compatible with Inclusive Welfare States? The (Un)sustainability of EU Exceptionalism,” Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, Working Paper no. 125 (2015).
Martin Höpner and Armin Schäfer, “Embeddedness and Regional Integration: Waiting for Polanyi in a Hayekian Setting,” International Organization 66, no. 3 (2012): 429–455,
Dion Kramer and Anita Heindlmaier, “Administering the Union citizen in Need: Between Welfare State Bureaucracy and Migration Control,” Journal of European Social Policy 31, no. 4 (2021): 380–394,
Achim Goerres, Rune Karlsen, and Staffan Kumlin, “What Makes People Worry about the Welfare State? A Three-Country Experiment,” British Journal of Political Science 50, no. 4 (2020): 1516–1537,
Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016).
Maureen A. Eger and Nate Breznau, “Immigration and the Welfare State: A Cross-regional Analysis of European Welfare Attitudes,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 58, no. 5 (2017): 440–463,
Christian S. Czymara. “Attitudes toward Refugees in Contemporary Europe: A Longitudinal Perspective on Cross-national Differences,” Social Forces 99, no. 3 (2021): 1306–1333,
Davids and Gouws, “Monitoring Perceptions”; van Oorschot and Halman, “Blame or Fate.”
Naumann and Stötzer, “Immigration and Support.”
Sabina Avdagic and Lee Savage, “Replication Data for: Negativity Bias—The Impact of Framing of Immigration on Welfare State Support in Germany, Sweden and the UK,” Harvard Dataverse, VI (2019).
Sabina Avdagic and Lee Savage, “Negativity Bias: The impact of framing of immigration on welfare state support in Germany, Sweden, and UK,” British Journal of Political Science 51, no. 2 (2021): 624–645,
Goldschmidt, “Anti-immigrant Sentiment.”
Enggist, “Welfare Chauvinism.”
Knotz et al., “Recast Framework.”
Shushanik Margaryan, Annemarie Paul, and Thomas Siedler, “Does Education Affect Attitudes towards Immigration? Evidence from Germany,” Journal of Human Resources 56, no. 2 (2021): 446–476,
See also Jacobsen et al., “In 2016, Around One-Third.”
Enggist, “Welfare Chauvinism”; Grdešić, “Neoliberalism”; Marko Grdešić, “The Strange Case of Welfare Chauvinism in Eastern Europe,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 53, no. 3 (2020): 107–122,
E.g., Grdešić, “Neoliberalism.”
Enggist, “Welfare Chauvinism.”
Alonso and Fonseca, “Immigration”; Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup, “Immigration”; Pérez and Fernández-Albertos, “Immigration”; Givens and Luedtke, “European Immigration Policies”; Afonso, “How to Please Voters.”
Alonso and Fonseca, “Immigration.”
João Carvalho and Didier Ruedin. “The Positions Mainstream Left Parties Adopt on Immigration: A Cross-cutting Cleavage?” Party Politics 26, no. 4 (2020): 379–389,
Jens P. F. Thomsen and Arzoo Rafiqi, “The Impact of Mass-level Ideological Orientations on Immigration Policy Preferences over Time,” Italian Political Science Review 49, no. 3 (2019): 279–291,
Givens and Luedtke, “European Immigration Policies.”
Tim Bale, “Cinderella and Her Ugly Sisters: The Mainstream and Extreme Right in Europe's Bipolarising Party Systems,” West European Politics 26, no. 3 (2003): 67–90,
Ibid.; Jonas Hinnfors, Andrea Spehar, and Gregg Bucken-Knapp, “The Missing Factor: Why Social Democracy Can Lead to Restrictive Immigration Policy,” Journal of European Public Policy 19, no. 4 (2012): 585–603,
Alonso and Fonseca, “Immigration.”
Pérez and Fernández-Albertos, “Immigration.”
Alonso and Fonseca, “Immigration.”
Boris Podobnik, Ivona Skreblin Kirbis, Maja Koprcina, and H. E. Stanley, “Emergence of the Unified Right- and Left-Wing Populism: When Radical Societal Changes Become More Important Than Ideology,” Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 517 (2019): 459–474,
Ibid.
Daniel Westlake, “Following the Right: Left and Right Parties’ Influence over Multiculturalism,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 53, no. 1 (2020): 171–188,
Svallfors, “Policy Feedback.”
Edeltraud Roller, “Welfare State and Political Culture in Unified Germany,” German Politics 24, no. 3 (2015): 292–316,
Hans-Jürgen Andreß and Thorsten Heien, “Four Worlds of Welfare State Attitudes? A Comparison of Germany, Norway and United States,” European Sociological Review 17, no. 4 (2001): 337–356,
Pfarr et al., “You Can't Always Get.”
Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016).
Auspurg et al., “Does Immigration Reduce”; cf. Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016).
Sola, “2015 Refugee Crisis.”
Jacobsen et al., “In 2016, Around One-Third”; on how ethnical background affects, see also Frank Asbrock, Gunnar Lemmer, Julia C. Becker, Jeffry Koller, and Ulrich Wagner, “‘Who Are These Foreigners Anyway?’ The Content of the Term Foreigner and Its Impact on Prejudice,” Sage Open 4, no. 1 (2014),
Michael A. Hansen and Jonathan Olsen, “Flesh of the Same Flesh: A Study of Voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 Federal Election,” German Politics 28, no. 1 (2019): 1–19,
Grdešić, “Neoliberalism.”
Avdagic and Savage, “Replication Data”; Avdagic and Savage, “Negativity Bias.”
Auspurg et al., “Does Immigration Reduce.”
Enggist, “Welfare Chauvenism”; Pinggera, “Congruent with Whom?”; Abou-Chadi and Immergut, “Recalibrating Social Protection”; Alonso and Fonseca, “Immigration”; Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup, “Immigration”; Pérez and Fernández-Albertos, “Immigration”; Afonso, “How to Please Voters.”
Carvalho and Ruedin, “Positions”; Thomsen and Rafiqi, “Impact.”
Sola, “2015 Refugee Crisis”; Jacobsen et al., “In 2016, Around One-Third”; Kulin and Meuleman, “Human Values.”
ESS Round 8—2016: European Social Survey Round 8 Data (2016), Data file edition 2.2, Norwegian Centre for Research Data, Data Archive and distributor of European Social Survey data for ESS-European Infrastructure Consirtum,
For more, see Andrew F. Hayes, Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-based Approach (New York: Guilford Press, 2022), 239–335.
Trevor S. Breusch and Adrian R. Pagan. “A Simple Test for Heteroscedasticity and Random Coefficient Variation,” Econometrica 47, no. 5 (1979): 1287–1294,
Windows SPSS Statistics 27, Version 27.0., IBM Corp., Armonk, NY.
R Core Team, “R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing,” R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna, https://www.r-project.org (accessed 8 August 2023).
Roderick J. A. Little. “A Test of Missing Completely at Random for Multivariate Data with Missing Values,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 83, no. 404 (1988): 1198–1202,
For more, see European Social Survey, “Weighting European Social Survey Data,” 25 April 2014, https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/methodology/ESS_weighting_data_1.pdf.
For more, see Hayes, Introduction, 269–275.
Burgoon and Rooduijn, “Immigrationization.”
Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016).
Patrick Sachweh. “Crisis Experiences and Welfare Attitudes during the Great Recession: A Comparative study on the UK, Germany and Sweden,” Acta Sociologica 62, no. 2 (2019): 135–151,
Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, “The End of the Conservative German Welfare State Model,” Social Policy & Administration 50, no. 2 (2016): 219–240,
Ibid.; Annabelle Wolff, “The British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party: Changing Attitudes towards the Welfare State,” PhD diss. (University of Plymouth, 2017).
Cf. Abou-Chadi and Immergut, “Recalibrating Social Protection.”
Seeleib-Kaiser, “End”; Wolff, “British Labour Party.”
Sachweh, “Crisis Experiences.”
Hinnfors et al., “Missing Factor”; Bale, “Cinderella”; Podobnik et al., “Emergence.”
Hinnfors et al., “Missing Factor”; Bale, “Cinderella.”
E.g., Hinnfors et al., “Missing Factor”; Bale, “Cinderella”; Podobnik et al., “Emergence.”
Pfarr et al., “You Can't Always Get”; Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016); Kulin and Meuleman, “Human Values”; Roller, “Welfare State”; Burgoon and Rooduijn, “Immigrationization”; Enggist, “Welfare Chauvinism”; Knotz et al., “Recast Framework.”
Auspurg et al., “Does Immigration Reduce.”
See Jacobsen et al., “In 2016, Around One-Third.”
Cf. Naumann and Stötzer, “Immigration and Support”; Avdagic and Savage, “Replication Data”; Avdagic and Savage, “Negativity Bias.”
Sola, “2015 Refugee Crisis.” It is possible that the regions’ different socio-structural factors have also affected to the AfD's support. See Weisskircher, “Strength.”
Naumann and Stötzer, “Immigration and Support.”
Davids and Gouws, “Monitoring Perceptions”; van Oorschot and Halman, “Blame or Fate.”
E.g., Femke Roosma, John Gelissen, and Wim van Oorschot, “The Multidimensionality of Welfare State Attitudes: A European Cross-national Study,” Social Indicators Research 113, no. 1 (2013): 235–255,
Burgoon and Rooduijn, “Immigrationization”; Crepaz and Damron, “Constructing Tolerance”; Gijs Schumacher and Kees van Kersbergen, “Do Mainstream Parties Adopt to the Welfare Chauvinism of Populist Parties?” Party Politics 22, no. 3 (2016): 300–312,
Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016).
Häkkilä, Laura and Timo Toikko. “Does the immigration issue divide the left's attitudes towards social welfare? A study on public support of social benefits and services in the Nordic countries”. International Journal of Social Policy 41, no. 13/14 (2021): 51–66.
E.g., Schwartz, “Theory of Cultural Value”; Kulin and Meuleman, “Human Values.”
Schmidt-Catran and Spies, “Immigration and Welfare Support” (2016); Eger and Breznau, “Immigration.”
