Do integration requirements undermine egalitarianism?

Abstract

For decades, policy makers have expressed concerns about immigration potentially undermining the welfare state. In this chapter, we examine a new income requirement for obtaining permanent residence. We argue that this requirement that was meant to rescue the fiscal sustainability of the welfare state may upon closer scrutiny create and exacerbate both socioeconomic and political inequalities, paradoxically resulting in the undermining of the egalitarian principle of the welfare state.