lower income taxes than other groups: about one thousand euros less than the native born population. Sweden (and France) shows the biggest difference between earnings of natives and migrants: for instance, group 4 migrants in Sweden earn about fourteen thousand euros per year less than the native-born population, and correspondingly pay about four thousand euros less in income taxes per year. In the EU4 countries, by contrast, migrants tend to have higher earnings on average than the native born population, a finding consistent with the education and occupation profile of migrants in these countries. However, in the cases of taxes paid by these groups, no such clear pattern is evident: while citizens born outside the EU as well as non-citizens from other EU countries tend to pay higher amounts of taxes on average than the native-born population, the converse is true for citizens born in other EU countries as well as non-citizens born outside the EU.

**Table 8: Average Benefits Receipts**

|||||**Eu**<br>|**rosperyea**<br>|**r**<br>||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Austria**|**Belgium**|**Spain**|**France**|**Ireland**|**Sweden**|**UK**|**EU 4**|**EU13**|
|**Total Benefits**||||||||||
|Native-born population|6,414|5,093|2,375|5,400|4,417|6,577|5,018|1,083|4,822|
|1. Citizens born in other EU countries|12,414|4,858|1,286|8,321|4,007|9,561|**...**|2,476|7,666|
|2. Citizens born outside the EU|4,352|3,643|1,719|6,604|**...**|6,124|4,357|2,470|5,064|
|3. Non-citizens from other EU countries|4,660|4,803|2,259|4,638|2,519|4,159|4,334|904|4,306|
|4. Non-citizens born outside the EU|2,378|3,984|327|3,391|2,943|5,135|1,974|351|2,311|
|All migrants(i.e.groups 1-4)|4,954|4,307|908|5,535|3,126|6,231|3,645|2,103|4,291|

**Note:** Computed over the population aged 16 years and older. **...** too few observations to permit reliable estimates.

**Personal benefits:** Summary statistics on average benefits receipts by the migrant and nonmigrant working-age populations are presented in Table 8 for selected EU countries.<sup>15</sup> Unlike the case of average incomes and taxes described above, the picture of benefits received by the various groups is somewhat more complex. On the one hand, in both the EU4 and EU13 country groups, citizens born outside the country consume more benefits than the native-born population group while the opposite is true of non-citizens born outside these countries. The overall average for EU13 countries conceals considerable differences across individual countries. Citizens of Austria, France, and Sweden born in other EU countries consume considerably higher benefits than the native-born populations in these respective countries (Table 8); this is not true for other countries. Similarly, France is the only country where the “citizens born outside the EU” group in fact consumes higher benefits than the native-born population. Finally, non-citizen migrant groups in all countries in Table 8 collect, on average, lower benefits than the respective native-born populations.

To sum, the evidence presented in tables 7 and 8 does not support the contention that migrants contribute less overall to the national tax and benefit systems of the countries where they reside. In EU13 countries as a whole, migrants do appear to pay slightly lower taxes on average, but they also consume lower benefits than the native-born population. While the “non-citizens born outside the EU” group pays lower taxes on average than the native-born population, this group also consumes significantly lower total benefits than other groups.

> 15 These benefits include unemployment, retirement and early retirement pension, survivor’s pensions, sickness and disability benefits, education, housing allowances, child-support benefits and social-exclusion benefits.

15