Handbook on Migration and Welfare

Bringing together prominent scholars in the field, this Handbook provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the complex interrelationship between migration and welfare. Chapters explore the extent to which immigration policy affects – and is affected by – welfare states, from both economic and political perspectives. This Handbook also examines the effects of emigration on sending societies, exploring issues such as the impact of remittances, diasporas, and skill deterioration as a result of human capital flight on capacity building and on economic and political development more generally.

Contributors draw on both qualitative and quantitative research to illuminate the contours and patterns of this complex relationship. This includes the assumed tension-reducing role of multiculturalist and integration policies, the shaping of native beliefs about migrants by socio-economic constraints and the potential for the extension of social rights to migrants to influence and increase pro-redistributive attitudes. Investigating the drivers of welfare chauvinism and its effects on social trust between native and immigrant groups, the Handbook also provides insights into the latest theoretical and empirical findings regarding the progressive’s dilemma, one of the most formidable policy challenges leaders of modern societies face.

Breaking new theoretical and empirical ground, this cutting-edge Handbook is essential reading for academics, researchers and students in political science, economics, sociology, social policy and political philosophy, particularly those focused on global migration and changing attitudes to welfare. It will also benefit policymakers looking for new data and pioneering perspectives on immigration policy and the future of welfare states in a changing world economy.