Double standard policy: why are immigrants still at the tail of welfare?

PurposeThis research considers the question of whether unemployment insurance benefit and labour-market activation measures induce the likelihood of re-employment and whether this effect differs for natives and immigrants.Design/methodology/approachStatistical processing was carried out on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions cross-sectional data for Finland for the period 2004 to 2016. Propensity score matching analysis was undertaken to investigate whether a treatment effect (unemployment insurance benefit) was a predictor of success in increasing re-employment rates, when controlling for participation in labour-market policy measures, subsidized employment and personal background characteristics.FindingsWe find that the probability of re-employment for recipients of unemployment benefits is half that of non-recipients of benefits. Due to the influence of subsidized employment, subsequent employment income decreases for recipients of unemployment benefits and especially for immigrants. Finally, we find that due to the influence of subsidized employment, time spent as a full-time employee decreases for recipients of unemployment benefits and especially for immigrants.Originality/valueAlthough our results indicate that benefit determination has a marked impact on re-employment probabilities, unobserved variables turn to play a significant role in selection of labour-market activation measures. In this respect, we find the treatment assignment to activation policy measures depends on influence of unobserved variables and this effect is more important for the re-employment rates of natives than it is for immigrants.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2019-0668.