Conclusion 125 because of, increasing immigration. This finding challenges the concern that immigration leads to a ‘race-to-the-bottom’ in welfare provision and increasing immigration should not mean that policymakers need to reduce benefit levels below that of their neighbouring countries when drawing up their own welfare policies. Instead, policymakers can focus on collaboration and cooperation with their neighbours for goals such as understanding best practice, setting minimum social standards and converging social policies such as in the case of European integration. Following the finding that immigration does not lead to welfare retrenchment but may instead foster support for redistribution, then policymakers should ensure that welfare policies remain robust and adaptable to demographic changes and that social welfare spending should be maintained or adjusted based on evidence-driven assessments rather than assumptions that increased immigration will necessarily strain public resources. In order to deliver better evidence-based policy, then data collection on migration should be improved. This means enhancing the quality, coverage and detail of data on stocks and flows of migrants, as well as distinguishing between different types of migrants, including migrant origins should be greatly improved. Quality individual-level surveys and access to administrative data for researchers, as well as improved migration tracking, can be used to close existing data gaps and better inform national and EU policies. Given that higher levels of immigration may reduce exclusionary social policy preferences through psychological mechanisms such as intergroup contact, steps should be taken to improve public communication on immigration in areas with fewer migrants, so attitudes align more closely with those who are more exposed to immigration. For example, governments could look to improve public awareness of the economic and social contributions of migrants and foster community integration programs that encourage interaction between native and foreign-born populations with the aim of further reducing perceived group threats and social tensions, and to prevent negative attitudes toward redistribution in high-unemployment contexts. Finally, the findings presented in this dissertation also indicate that while immigration might influence redistribution through changes in spending, generosity, and policy preferences, this relationship is mediated by broader economic conditions, particularly unemployment. Since CEE labour mobility is positively associated with feelings of job insecurity, consider policies that enhance job security and mitigate economic vulnerability while balancing economic competitiveness, such as active labour market policies that have been shown to support economic growth (Bação et al., 2024). For example, policies that increase and improve access to retraining programs and skill-building initiatives in high-demand sectors to improve employability.
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