Welfare systems, political parties, and international migration: Fiscal effects of migration and conditional partisan effects on migration policies in European countries

My dissertation attempts to answer the following questions. First, what are the effects of international migration on the welfare systems in migrant-receiving countries? Also, are the welfare effects of migration considered when migration policies are established? Second, how does party politics shape migration policies? Are there any partisan differences in migration policies? If there are, are the differences unconditional? In particular, are left-wing parties free from any pressure that makes them less friendly to foreign people? My dissertation explores three issues regarding international migration to answer these questions: (a) public attitudes toward migrants; (b) population aging, the pension crisis, and the recruitment of foreign workers; and (c) policies on welfare benefits to asylum seekers.;My dissertation reaches the following conclusions. First, the welfare effects of migration depend on the type of migration as well as the type of welfare program. While the inflow of foreign workers eases the pressure on the pension system, the inflow of asylum seekers becomes a fiscal burden to the welfare system of the host country. Second, the various migration effects on the welfare system are recognized by people in host countries. Their awareness of and concern with the welfare effects of international migration play a significant role in shaping migration policies. Many countries have tried to recruit more foreign workers (and some have successfully done so) because they expected the inflow would ease the problems associated with an aging population and troubled pension systems. In contrast, in the middle of the asylum crisis in the early 1990s, concerns about fiscal pressure created by asylum seekers brought about restrictive asylum policies. Finally, partisan differences on migration policies are not unconditional. Though, in general, left-wing parties implement more liberal migration policies than right-wing parties do, they are constrained not to be too soft on foreign people by other factors. Specifically, left-wing parties constrained by the strong political influence of manual workers do not admit more foreign workers than right-wing parties. Also, left-wing parties introduced restrictive asylum policies when elections approached during the asylum crisis because being soft on asylum seekers could bring serious electoral disadvantages to them.