Social Rights and Citizenship: An International Comparison.

This paper examines policies regarding access to social benefits and the labor market in nine representative liberal industrialized democracies. Five are self-consciously nations of immigration: the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel, and France. Four are de-facto immigration nations within the European Union (EU): Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Britain. The countries reflect substantial variation in size and character of immigration flows, as well as differing regimes of access to both the social welfare state and labor market and approaches to granting citizenship. This analysis focuses on legal or tolerated immigrants. After section 1, "Introduction," section 2, "Access to Public Benefits: General Policy Trends," discusses the path to permanent status; rationing benefits by citizenship in the United States, Austria, and Britain; indirect bars to benefits; restrictions to contributory benefit programs; and whether rationing by citizenship makes good policy. Section 3, "Rationing Access to the Labor Market on the Basis of Citizenship," discusses public sector employment, private sector employment, and self-employment. Section 4 focuses on "Is Citizenship Enough? Antidiscrimination Policies." Section 5, "Policy Recommendations," offers five recommendations. An appendix presents summary tables (benefit eligibility by country). (Contains 63 references.) (SM)