What do stances on immigrants' welfare entitlement mean? Evidence from a correlational class analysis

Abstract

Recent in-depth qualitative research indicates that different people ascribe different meanings to their apparently similar stances on immigrants' entitlement to welfare. We are the first to investigate such variation quantitatively among the public-at-large, applying the novel method Correlational Class Analysis to an original survey fielded among a representative sample in the Netherlands (n = 2138). We uncover five ways of looking at immigrants' entitlement to welfare, each including both people who oppose that entitlement and those who support it. People who adhere to these different viewpoints substantially differ when it comes to income, education, religious denomination, and political preference. We interpret these unique findings and discuss them in relation to the extant literature on welfare chauvinism. Moreover, uncovering what people's stances regarding immigrants' entitlement to welfare mean not only advances the scholarly debate on welfare chauvinism, but also provides a stepping stone for meaning-oriented sociological research on public opinion more generally.