Feeling insecure and excluding immigrants: Relationship between subjective risks and welfare chauvinism

Abstract We argue that subjective insecurity plays an important role in explaining welfare chauvinism, which is defined as the restriction of immigrants' access to social benefits and public services. Additionally, macroeconomic performance and welfare regime are closely related to opinions about the social rights of migrant groups. We test these propositions, using a multilevel ordered logit model using the 8th wave of ESS. It is found that subjective unemployment and income risks are not overlapping with objective measures, and self‐assessed insecurity has a strong and positive effect on welfare chauvinism. Moreover, we demonstrate that, even for the most socio‐economically advantaged respondents, subjective risk increases the likelihood of chauvinistic welfare attitudes. At the macro level, higher rates of GDP per capita growth decrease welfare chauvinism, and Central and Eastern European welfare regime increases the likelihood of exclusionary attitudes in relative terms. The results are robust across different estimation techniques and inclusion of alternative contextual factors.