A new study has revealed that generous welfare systems like the one seen in Denmark actually attract more welfare-dependent migrants than those that are less generous.
The study, carried out by economists at Princeton University in the U.S., examined the effects of welfare generosity on international migration. After reviewing several large-scale changes in Denmark’s welfare benefits for immigrants, researchers concluded that migrants were more likely to make their way to Denmark when they could claim more benefits.
Researchers Ole Agersnap, Amalie Jenson, and Henrik Kleven, who saw Denmark as an “ideal setting” for studying the “welfare magnet” issue, followed several modifications to Danish immigration law and noted their effects.
The first modification came in 2002 and reduced social welfare benefits for migrants coming from outside of the European Union by 50 percent. Ten years later the policy was overturned by a leftist government before it was yet again re-instituted in 2015 after a center-right government returned.
Such conditions allowed for researchers to carry out a “quasi-experimental research design” with “sizeable effects”.
From the data obtained, researchers concluded: “The benefit reduction reduced the net flow of immigrants by about 5,000 people per year, or 3.7 percent of the stock of treated immigrants, and the subsequent repeal of the policy reversed the effect almost exactly.”
“While there are many non-welfare factors that matter for migration decisions, our evidence implies that, conditional on moving, the generosity of the welfare system is important for destination choices,” researchers say.
Denmark’s foreign-born population currently stands at 13.5 but continues to grow each year.
Source : https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/12/study-generous-social-welfare-systems-attract-more-migrants/
No comments:
Post a Comment