“Differences in Social Transfer Support and Poverty for Immigrant Families with Children: Lessons from the LIS” Timothy Smeeding, Coady Wing, Karen Robson for Bellagio Meeting on Immigrant Children

Introduction LIS offers the possibility to compare ‘immigrants’ and ‘minorities’ to majorities in several nations for at least one time period (circa 2000). How much help do less advantaged groups get from social tax-benefit programs and from their own market incomes in rich nations ?

Working hypothesis: The country where ‘immigrants’ (minorities) live is more important than their legal (majority-minority/immigrant) status in determining net social benefits (cash and near cash) and poverty status. If supported, then countries can make a difference for immigrant child well being –at least in income support

Research Questions Migrants come to countries for work, but if something goes wrong, what do countries look like in terms of overall poverty and program effects on minority and immigrant groups—how do they fare ? How big are differences across groups within nations as compared to across nations? Unanswered: how about education and healthcare?

Methods Relative poverty at 50 percent median Market Income (MI) vs. Disposable Income (DPI) Net social benefits (cash and near-cash transfers in minus direct taxes paid) No count health or education benefits Define ‘immigrant’ and-or ‘minority’

Meaning of ‘Minority’ or ‘Immigrant’ in LIS data US, France, Canada : ‘Born outside country’ Germany, Sweden: ‘‘Non-national” Australia: ‘Not Australian’ UK: ‘Non-white or minority ‘(with many categories of ethnicity) Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Italy : ‘Multiple nationality’ Finland: ‘Swedish speaking’ (HA!)

Idiosyncrasies EU-ECHP (old and bad for this purpose ) vs. EU-SILC (birth, nationality,--but not here yet) Native American blacks not counted as minority in this go around Naturalized vs. not (data question in only surveys ) Documented vs. not (sampling question and response rate question ) Our decision: press on but be careful

Literature : Sparse Lots out there on earnings and second vs. first generation minorities Lots on labor market effects of immigrants Lots on ‘rhetoric’ of pull back of welfare state benefits in face of immigration BUT not much hard evidence on how cash welfare state reacts to immigrants in across country context

Results: How About Poverty and Program Effects for ‘Immigrant’ vs. ‘Majority’? Minority -Majority Poverty Rates (Table 2) Overall System Effects: Majority Kids (Figure 4a)vs.Minority Kids (Figure4b) Majority vs. Minority Poverty Reduction for all Households with Kids : Last Figure

United States Canada Australia Germany Sweden Ireland (e) Belgium Austria Finland Spain Greece England France Portugal (e) Italy (e) Immigrant Children Majority Children Countries in red use the echp Percent Reduction in Child Poverty: Immigrants vs. Majorities

Results So Far Majority minority poverty rates and welfare state treatment differ by nation, but biggest differences are across nations and not within nations USA looks bad in most all comparisons, especially compared to Canada and Australia, but mainly because of weak welfare state- not because they mistreat immigrants in particular

What is left to do? LOTS Support for hypothesis that destination country more important than minority- immigrant status in determining poverty status –will it hold up? Definitions of immigrant inconsistent and needing more exploration More work needed here: EU-SILC; age of kids, parental mix, etc Really need comparable assessments for education and health care systems

What to Lobby For ALL ADULTS: Were you born in this country (Y or N) ? If no, when did you migrate ? ALL CHILDREN : Were your children born in this country (Y or N)? If no, where were they born and when did they come?