CEPS-EconPol Lunch Debate
Migration and the Welfare State
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CEPS, Brussels, Belgium
International migration is at the top of the European political agenda. European labor markets need immigrants. Population aging has already created labor shortages, but immigration also raises concerns about distributional conflicts.
These concerns, sometimes real and sometimes imagined, have played an important role in the rise of populist parties across Europe, and in the Brexit referendum. This lunchtime seminar, the first in a series, presented an overall assessment on the welfare effects of immigration when both the effects on labor market and public finances are accounted for.
It analyzed an often-overlooked aspect of international migration: emigration from European welfare states and how it can be expected to affect their fiscal and political sustainability.
