Social transfers utilisation among migrants and Irish-born in Ireland

Debates about the impacts of immigration on host countries have been ongoing for many years, covering a broad range of social and economic issues. From an economic perspective, a recurring question is whether immigration reduces the wages and employment opportunities of the native-born. 

Another strand of the debate relates to the fiscal impact of immigration. In this report, we focus on a specific dimension of the fiscal impact and assess whether immigrants in Ireland are more or less likely to be in receipt of social welfare payments compared to the native-born. We begin the analysis by looking at the labour market outcomes of immigrants between 2014 and 2024. We show that immigrants have generally had higher employment rates than the native-born and higher unemployment rates too. These two contrasting outcomes are possible because immigrants have also tended to have higher rates of labour force participation (i.e. a lower share of inactive population within the working-age population). 

Turning to the examination of welfare receipt across immigrants and natives, we use the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) from 2014 to 2024 and include all people aged 15 to 65 regardless of whether they have an income. It should be noted here that in order to access some social welfare payments in Ireland, applicants must pass a ‘habitually resident condition’, through which people’s connection to Ireland is determined. 

Overall, the findings in the report show that there is no general pattern of immigrants being more likely to be in receipt of welfare compared to the native-born. We initially present a descriptive analysis looking at rates of welfare receipt based on simple proportions, without adjusting for socio-economic characteristics for both immigrants and natives. Focusing on unemployment, sickness/disability and family/children-related welfare payments, in 2024, 56 per cent of the Irish-born received at least one of these payments compared to 61 per cent of immigrants, and the difference is statistically significant. For both, the high rates of receipt were driven by family payments, including the universal child benefit, and the rate of receipt was higher for immigrants – 58 vs. 47 per cent. Looking at other payments (e.g. unemployment-related payments), we see either no difference between immigrants and the native-born, or lower rates of receipt among immigrants.