Social investment in times of large-scale migration: Cure or source for the migrant poverty gap?
Lutz Gschwind, researcher at the Department of Government at Uppsala University will discuss his research on welfare policies and migrant integration
Public policies that promote labour market participation in the working-age population have become a cornerstone of modern welfare states. Yet, we still know comparatively little about the impact that such ‘social investment’ policies have on the economic integration of immigrants. The study develops several competing hypothesis about this topic with a focus on the two most widely used types of social investment: early childhood education and care (ECEC) and active labour market policies (ALMPs). Empirical analyses with both macro- and micro-level data for 15 Western
European welfare states show that countries with a high social investment ambition are more effective at reducing poverty gaps between newcomers and established members of society, independently of the type of intervention. However, social investment ambition is also associated with disproportionately high poverty risks among immigrants who just arrived to their country of residency, especially for public spending on ECEC. This finding suggests that employment-oriented public policies can help reducing migrant poverty gaps over time, but only at the cost of generating substantial initial barriers for newcomers.