Politics of welfare exclusion: Open and concealed welfare chauvinism and public support for social assistance reform

Abstract

Social science research has produced evidence of chauvinistic attitudes concerning who should have access to the welfare state's benefits. Citizens generally consider individuals of immigrant-origin less deserving of welfare support than comparable native-born citizens. This study expands on existing research by investigating whether and for whom the presence of welfare chauvinistic elements in a proposal to reform a social benefit translates into support for the proposal. A forced-choice survey experiment was conducted to estimatethe causal impact of welfare chauvinistic elements on preferences for fictional proposals to reform social assistance in Denmark. The experiment randomly varied two welfare chauvinistic elements: open welfare chauvinism, which explicitly reduces benefits for non-citizens, and concealed welfare chauvinism, which introduces a minimum length-of-residence requirement for eligibility. The results show that proposing to lower the social assistance rate for non-citizens positively affected support for the reform, whereas a minimum length-of-residence eligibility requirement had no significant effect on preferences. Further analysis illuminates that preference for open welfare chauvinism is greater among right-leaning voters. These findings indicate that a public opinion favoring welfare chauvinism may undermine the social legitimacy of immigrant inclusive means-tested benefits.