Record Details

Replication Data for: Do Immigrants Move to Welfare? Subnational Evidence from Switzerland

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: Do Immigrants Move to Welfare? Subnational Evidence from Switzerland
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/IOVCO4
 
Creator Ferwerda, Jeremy
Marbach, Moritz
Hangartner, Dominik
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description The welfare magnet hypothesis holds that immigrants are likely to relocate to regions with generous welfare benefits. Although this assumption has motivated extensive reforms to immigration policy and social programs, the empirical evidence remains contested. In this study, we assess detailed administrative records from Switzerland covering the full population of social assistance recipients between 2005 and 2015. By leveraging local variation in cash transfers and exogenous shocks to benefit levels, we identify how benefits shape within-country residential decisions. We find limited evidence that immigrants systematically move to localities with higher benefits. The lack of significant welfare migration within a context characterized by high variance in benefits and low barriers to movement suggests that the prevalence of this phenomenon may be overstated. These findings have important implications in the European setting, where subnational governments often possess discretion over welfare and parties frequently mobilize voters around the issue of “benefit tourism.”
 
Subject Social Sciences
Welfare magnet
Welfare migration
Immigration
Welfare
 
Contributor Ferwerda, Jeremy
 
Source STAT-TAB Database, Federal Statistical Office (BFS), Switzerland; https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs
/de/home/dienstleistungen/forschung/stat-tab-online-datenrecherche.html



Dubach, Philipp, et al. “Evaluation der Leistungen mit Anreizcharakter gemäss SKOS-Richtlinien.” Im Auftrag der Schweizerischen Konferenz für Sozialhilfe SKOS. Büro für arbeits-und sozialpolitische Studien BASS. 2015.



Swiss State Secretariat for Migration, https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/themen/fza_schweizeu-efta.html



State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), https://www.seco.admin.ch/seco/en/home.html



Federal Statistics Office (BFS), Swizerland. https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/sta
tistics/regional-statistics/base-maps/cartographic-bases.html



Swissdox.ch, https://swissdox.ch/



Federal Statistical Office, Section Social Welfare, Espace de l’Europe 10, 2010 Neuchâtel, Switzerland