The established outsider and the welfare state. Explaining welfare state attitudes from the dual perspective of Turkish and Moroccan Belgians.

In current times of economic recession and increased migration flows within Western societies, the relation between the welfare state and migration receives much attention in both popular and scholar debates. The tensions regarding the migration-welfare state relation revolve predominantly around the demarcation of welfare policies. In other words, who’s in and who’s out? These questions gave rise to the extensive investigation of peoples’ support for government intervention, social redistribution, and the welfare state. Even though the relation between immigration and the welfare state is widely discussed, there is hardly any empirical evidence on the attitudes of immigrants and their descendants towards socioeconomic issues and the welfare state. The growing tensions regarding the welfare states’ boundaries are almost exclusively considered from the insiders position of native citizens. This while society grows more diverse every day and while an increasing share of the population has a migration background. This project broadens this perspective and contributes to the understanding of the attitudes of ethnic minorities – i.e. non-native Belgian citizens of Moroccan and Turkish descent – towards social redistribution, government responsibility, and the welfare state access of new arriving immigrants.