Managing migration in the European welfare state

Abstract

"The patterns of European migration are missing from the literature largely due to the absence of unifying standards of registering and reporting immigration across European countries. In the remainder of this chapter, we start therefore with an overview of the quantity and national distribution of migration stocks and flows, the age and skill structure of immigrants, and the structure of employment, based on the fragmented information available from national and international sources. In Chapter 2 we investigate in depth the impact of European immigration policies on national origin and the human capital characteristics of migrants. In Chapter 3 we explore welfare take-up amongst immigrants and attitudes in three areas: unemployment benefits, health benefits, and pensions, discussing how a differentiated take-up for immigrants occurs and whether this arises from their separate observable characteristics such as youthfulness. In Chapter 4 the consequences of enlarging the EU to Central and Eastern Europe, that is, a group of countries which differ considerably from the present EU members regarding factor endowments and per capita income levels, are discussed. In Chapter 5 we analyse the attitudes of Europeans towards immigration and confront the attitudes with the facts about welfare dependency and labour market performance of migrants. In Chapter 6 we extend the policy debate by discussing the comparative economic implications for both host and origin country of a policy of accepting permanent immigration to fill a given number of positions, with one which rotates a larger number of temporary migrants through a similar number of positions. Finally, we draw conclusions for managing migration in the European welfare state against the background of our findings." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Brücker, H., Epstein, G., MacCormick, B., Saint-Paul, G., Venturini, A. & Zimmermann, K. (2002): Managing migration in the European welfare state. In: T. Boeri, G. H. Hanson & B. MacCormick (Hrsg.) (2002): Immigration policy and the welfare system : a report for the Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti, p. 1-167.