 Wim van Oorschot and Wilfred Uunk, Welfare Spending and the Public s Concern for Immigrants: Multilevel Evidence for Eighteen European Countries How does a nation's welfare spending affect people's concern for immigrants in comparison with other needy groups? Economic self-interest and cultural ideology theory and knowledge about immigration rates in welfare states suggest several hypotheses. Multilevel regression analyses of data for eighteen countries from the European Values Survey 1999/2000 demonstrate that a nation's welfare spending positively affects people's relative concern for immigrants. However, it is not the level of welfare spending itself but rather the level of immigration that makes people relatively more concerned. These findings suggest that fears of tensions about welfare redistribution toward immigrants is not justified in European countries. |