Publication Prize to Georg Picot

Picot receives the prize for the article ‘European Welfare States and Migrant Poverty: The Institutional Determinants of Disadvantage’. The article is written in collaboration with Gerda Hooijer from the University of Oxford, and was published in the journal Comparative Political Studies last year.

Picot and Hooijer analyse the institutional factors that lead to higher poverty rates among immigrants from non-EU countries than among the rest of the population in 16 Western European countries. They find that the poverty difference is greater in countries with generous welfare systems and a high proportion of humanitarian and family-reunion immigrants.

The purpose of the publication award is to highlight good social scientific research and to motivate as well as reward high-quality research. In the assessment, high scientific quality, originality, and innovation were emphasised.

Innovative contribution
According to the assessment of the publication, the article is of high scientific quality and provides an innovative contribution to research on immigration and the welfare state across multiple disciplines. In addition to comparative politics, the article draws on previous research in sociology and economics.

Special emphasis is placed on the article’s research design, which combines three different methods both quantitative and qualitative. The article highlights an interesting and relevant topic, and makes an important contribution to the on-going public debate. The results are sobering and challenge received wisdom that immigrants generally benefit from generous welfare states.