The Welfare-Superdiversity Nexus in Belgium

In a context of increased ethnic diversity due to sustained migration inflows especially since the 1960s, the access of third-country nationals to welfare across the EU has become a major area of concern. On the one side, the recent financial crisis has led to growing unemployment levels amongst this specific group of mobile individuals, with almost half of them being considered at risk of poverty or social exclusion across the EU (Eurostat 2019). On the other hand, their access to European welfare systems has gained high salience in public opinion (European Social Survey 2016) and political discourses in which non-EU migrants are sometimes portrayed as “underserving users” or “abusers” of welfare (Schmidt, Blauberger& Martinsen 2018; Ruhs& Palme 2018). Against this general background, this paper seeks to understand how and why Belgium ensures the social protection coverage of non-EU migrants residing in their territory by concluding bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) with third countries. Drawing on an original dataset of the BSSAs currently in place between Belgium and the top five origin countries of its immigrant population, we show that the gradual bilateral collaboration in this field led to a high proportion of non-EU migrant communities being currently covered in their access to welfare benefits