Explaining Cross-Country Differences in Attitudes Towards Immigration in the EU-15

Nikolaj Malchow-Møller, Jakob Roland Munch, Sanne Schroll, Jan Rose Skaksen

25 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this paper, we use data from the first two rounds of the European Social Survey to analyze the extent to which differences in average attitudes towards immigration across the EU-15 countries may be explained by differences in socioeconomic characteristics and individually perceived consequences of immigration, using an extension of a decomposition technique developed by Fairlie (2005). We find that despite the significant effects of socioeconomic characteristics on attitudes, differences in the distributions of these characteristics can only explain a modest share of the cross-country variation in average attitudes. A larger part can be explained by differences in perceived consequences of immigration, but the main part is still left unexplained. Apart from providing useful input for policy makers working in the area of immigration policy, this raises a number of questions for further research for which the ESS data can be successfully applied.
Original languageEnglish
JournalSocial Indicators Research
Volume91
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)371-390
Number of pages20
ISSN0303-8300
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2009

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