The Political Economy of Immigration and Welfare State Effort: Evidence from Europe 19 pared to the Welfare Generosity Index in Table 2.2, we can see that they do not exactly correspond (the correlation is 0.4). Interestingly, Norway leaps from 9th place to 1st – it is possible that because Norway is a particularly rich country, it can spend relatively less on social welfare while still maintaining the generosity of its benefits. Table 2.1: Social welfare spending as a percentage of GDP Country Mean Country Mean Country Mean France 29 Luxembourg 22 Czech Republic 18 Sweden 28 Spain 22 Switzerland 17 Finland 27 Hungary 22 Slovakia 17 Belgium 26 Greece 20 Ireland 17 Austria 26 Netherlands 21 Iceland 15 Denmark 26 Poland 21 Estonia 15 Germany 25 Slovenia 21 Italy 24 Portugal 20 Norway 22 United Kingdom 19 Average 22 Table 2.2: Total generosity index Country Mean Country Mean Country Mean Norway 42 Denmark 36 Portugal 31 Belgium 41 Finland 35 Italy 28 Sweden 41 Germany 35 Greece 28 France 38 Spain 34 United Kingdom 27 Netherlands 37 Austria 33 Switzerland 36 Ireland 31 Average 35 2.3.2 Explanatory Variable Following the example of previous researchers (Soroka et al., 2006; Gaston & Rajaguru, 2013; Mau & Burkhardt, 2009) the main explanatory variable is foreign-born as a percentage of the population (OECD, 2017b), which serves as an indicator of the stock of migrants in a country. The standard definition of foreign-born is “all persons who have ever migrated from their country of birth to their current country of residence” (OECD, 2017b).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw