Universität zu Köln

Deeg, Franziska Sophie (2022). The welfare state as a remedy for the risks of globalization? The effects of trade and migration on individual social policy and welfare deservingness preferences in middle-income countries. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

In industrialized countries, welfare states play an important role in cushioning the effects of global market integration: Economic globalization leads to offshoring and dependence on international supply chains, making the economic system of countries more dependent on the volatility of the global market. Furthermore, through migration, labor market competitors, and new welfare consumers enter countries. Academic literature, so far, focuses on the dynamics of globalization and its effects on welfare states mostly in industrialized countries. Over the years, middle and low-income countries adapted to the world market, eager to benefit from its transformative power. Due to high levels of labor market dualization between informal and formal workers, low trust in government, and low tax morale, evidence from industrialized countries on the effects of globalization on welfare state preferences cannot simply be transferred to middle income countries. In this dissertation, I investigate the effects of trade and migration concerns on social policy and welfare deservingness preferences of individuals from Mexico and Brazil. I address this research focus by solely engaging in the demand side of welfare policies. I am interested in the two drivers for welfare demand: self-interest, as well as altruism. More specifically, in Chapter 2, I look at the effects of concerns about protectionism from Mexico’s most important trading partner the U.S. and how this translates into preferences for the welfare state. In Chapter 3, return migration and refugee inflow in the context of Mexico is scrutinized and its implications for social policy demand. In both chapters, I focus on the self-interest of individuals. In Chapter 4, I deviate from the focus on self-interest and look at altruism in the form of welfare deservingness. For that, I employ a conjoint experiment that shows how individuals react to offshoring and migration inflow in terms of welfare deservingness. The dissertation advances our understanding of globalization-welfare state dynamics and generates first empirical insights in middle-income countries on the micro level. It, furthermore, tests theoretical arguments that deviate from expectations for high income countries and finds that, in fact, globalization concerns translate differently into self-interest-based preferences for the welfare state. The study uses novel, original survey data from Mexico and Brazil that is a more practical contribution to the further investigation of middle-income countries.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Deeg, Franziska Sophie franziska.deeg@icloud.com UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-610000
Date:	2022
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Political Science > Cologne Center for Comparative Politics
Subjects:	Political science
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language social policy UNSPECIFIED middle income countries UNSPECIFIED survey UNSPECIFIED
Date of oral exam:	24 January 2022
Referee:	Name Academic Title Kaiser, André Prof. Dr.
Funders:	The project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – project number 374666841 – SFB 1342.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/61000