The Welfare State and Attitudes to Free Movement : How does the design of the social insurance system associate with public attitudes towards free movement in receiving EU countries?

Abstract: The EU is faced with problems related to the unrestricted access to national welfare states of mobile EU workers. These problems are mainly framed by the growing opposition to the free movement of workers. The strongest contributing factor to these negative attitudes has commonly said to be actor-based, i.e. the media or political elites. However, more recent research has been shifting the focus to institutions as explanatory factor. I raise the question of to what extent individuals’ attitudes towards the free movement of workers are associated with their exposure to different welfare state institutional contexts. More specifically I explore the role of “earnings-relatedness” in specific social insurances for the attitudes of potential benefit claimants. Analyzing 12 EU/EFTA countries who are net receivers of mobile EU workers I find that in welfare state contexts with a high degree of earnings-relatedness the opposition to free movement is significantly lower than otherwise among the unemployed. Furthermore, I discover that these observations seem to vary depending on what part of the social insurance system one is analyzing.