Intra-EU Labour Migration and Attitudes Towards the Welfare State 117 Overall, these results indicate that different forms of migration have varying impacts on attitudes towards social policy. The differential effects underscore the complexity of migration’s influence on public opinion, highlighting the importance of considering the specific characteristics of migrant groups when analysing policy attitudes and emphasising the need for tailored policy responses that address the diverse concerns of different populations. 5.7 Conclusion This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on immigration and social policy preferences through exploring how immigration is related to attitudes towards redistribution. Using multilevel ordered logit models to include both micro- and macro-level factors and two different measures for immigration (foreign-born as percentage of the population to test the effect of general level of immigration and Central and Eastern European labour mobility), the paper finds somewhat varied results between these two different migration indicators. Similar to Cappelen and Peters (2017, 2018) and Brady and Finnigan (2014), the analysis finds a positive and significant relationship between general levels of immigration and support for redistribution, suggesting that there may indeed be some evidence in favour of the compensation hypothesis and intergroup contact theory (more frequent contact with the out-group can increase tolerance, reduce prejudice, and diminish anti-immigrant sentiments). Consequently, a larger share of immigrants in a population could decrease perceived group threat and reduce the likelihood of exclusionary or retrenchment social policy preferences. Supporting this theory, when the dependent variable is replaced with an indicator for welfare chauvinism, I find a negative association, suggesting that at higher levels of immigration, people are less likely to support ring-fencing benefits, contrary to the expectations of some of the literature (e.g., Eger and Breznau, 2017; Negash and van Vliet, 2024; van der Meer and Reeskens, 2021). Moreover, the analysis finds that foreign-born as a percentage of the population does not significantly affect perceptions of social benefits as a strain on the economy or subjective poverty risk. When the CEE labour mobility is tested in the analysis, there is no significant, direct effect on preferences for redistribution. However, the analysis of interaction effects reveals that CEE labour mobility is more complexly linked to preferences for redistribution. At higher levels of unemployment and CEE labour mobility the average probability of responding with ‘agree’ to the idea that government should take steps to reduce inequality, all else remaining equal, is significantly reduced. The initial effect of CEE labour mobility is positive suggesting some evidence in favour of the compensa-
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