Who Deserves Solidarity? Unequal Treatment of Immigrants in Swiss Welfare Policy Delivery

Rising immigration rates in Western Europe concur with increasing anti‐immigrant attitudes. While assessments of welfare eligibility in the United States demonstrably hinge on how public servants perceive different racial groups as deserving, we know less about ethnically motivated discrimination in the European context. This paper argues that Switzerland is a critical case for studying such developments. It combines social construction theory and the deservingness heuristic to analyze how social constructions of Swiss natives and immigrants influence 90 disability benefits insurance procedures. Findings reveal that immigrants are perceived as less deserving and less powerful than Swiss applicants. Thus, Swiss welfare workers do not allocate welfare benefits independently of an applicant's nationality. Our results raise fundamental questions about the equal treatment of welfare applicants in times of rising immigration and anti‐immigrant attitudes. The feed‐forward effects of social constructions imply longer‐term consequences for good administrative practices and society that require scholarly attention. 摘要 西欧高速增长的移民率使得反移民态度也日趋强烈。尽管对于美国享受福利资格的评估表明这取决于公职人员如何评判不同种族是否应得, 我们对于欧洲有关民族的歧视却知之甚少。本文认为瑞士是研究相关发展的一个重要案例。它结合了社会建构理论和正当性启示法来分析瑞士本地人和移民的社会建构是如何影响90位残障人士的保险受益程序的。结果显示相比于瑞士申请人, 移民被认为拥有较少的正当性和权力。也就是说, 瑞士福利工人的福利受益分配不是独立于申请人国籍的。我们的结果在移民大量涌入和反移民态度日渐强烈的当下提出了关于平等对待福利申请人的重要问题。社会建构的正反馈作用意味着这些会影响行政实践和社会的长期结果值得学者们的关注。