Immigrants Participation in the Social Assistance in Finland : Is there a difference between immigrant and native participants and does the time spent in the new country affect their probability of using social assistance?

Abstract: This paper analyzes the immigrant´s probability to participate in social assistance programs compared to natives in Finland and if there are any cohort and assimilation effects. For estimation, we used the linear probability model to find out the result. The results show that in general there is no assimilation effect on immigrants but there is a sign of assimilation when variables such as regions, education level and refugee are added to the model. The result shows that immigrants have a higher possibility of the participation rate in social assistance compared to natives and the probability differs between refugees and non-refugees and country of origin. The result shows a higher probability for immigrants from the Middle east. In this paper language skill (Finnish variable) is included and it shows that the possibility reduces if the immigrants have a higher capacity of Finnish language.