Book Review: Migrants’ Attitudes and the Welfare State. The Danish Melting Pot by Karen Nielsen Breidahl, Troels Fage Hedegaard, Kristian Kongshøj, Christian Albrekt Larsen
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13882627231160533 |
| Author | Simone Emmert |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Overall, this is a very useful and must-read book for researchers and students of social policy, as
well as informative for the general public.
ORCID id
Artan Mustafa https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4042-6658
Karen Nielsen Breidahl, Troels Fage Hedegaard, Kristian Kongshøj and Christian Albrekt Larsen, Migrants’
Attitudes and the Welfare State. The Danish Melting Pot, 2021, Cheltenham: E. Elgar Publishing, 208 pp.,
ISBN: 978 1 80037 633 5
Reviewed by: Simone Emmert ,Nuremberg Institute of Technology Georg-Simon-Ohm
DOI: 10.1177/13882627231160533
The book falls under the scope of migration studies with an interdisciplinary perspective on political
science, sociology and economics.
It gives an analytic insight into migration in Danish society and the welfare state system by com-
paring the experiences of immigrants, coming from 14 different countries of origin (Lebanon,
Pakistan, Iraq, ex-Yugoslavia (primarily Bosnia), Turkey, the Philippines, China, Japan, Russia,
the USA, Great Britain, Spain, Poland, and Romania). The research focuses on the perspective
of migrants in the welfare state system and society in their destination countries. It also analyses
the educational and religious backgrounds of the interviewees in relation to their attitudes
towards the welfare state.
It is a unique research, as for the first time the views of migrants have been analysed from a
cross-cultural perspective in Northern Europe. Before, studies were based on data collected in
the US which has a less generous welfare benefit system and reduced universal services, and
given the difference between the systems, the results were perhaps not applicable to the
(Northern) European system.
The theoretical framework of the book is based on migration studies as well as comparative
welfare studies. The first theory is that migrants’preferences and cultures seem to be highly flexible
and adaptive in contrast to fixed preferences and cultures. According to the second theory, the per-
ceptions, norms, values, and attitudes of natives and migrants are shaped by existing institutions.
These two theories lead to the main thesis, that the attitudes of migrants towards the welfare
state are to a great extent similar to those of native Danes, despite the differences in preferences
and cultural backgrounds.
The research consists of two large survey studies that were combined with Danish register data
The first research question is a descriptive one and aims at measuring the extent to which
migrants assimilate to the welfare attitudes of native Danes.
The second research question is about causality and examines the mechanisms of migrants’
assimilation to the welfare attitudes of the native Danes, although it is limited by the cross-sectional
nature of the data material.
To answer these questions the book consists of four main parts.
100 European Journal of Social Security 25(1)
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