Anti-immigrant Attitudes in the European Union: What Role for Values?

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the connection between values individuals hold and perception whether immigration is bad or good for economy in the European Union. It applies the multilevel modelling approach on the European Social Survey rounds 1–7 and a set of the OECD economic measures. The method allows for an examination of personal (values, socioecomic and demographic) and contextual (GDP, inequality and unemployment rates) drivers of anti-immigrant tendencies. The results show that individual values are connected to how people perceive immigrants in the EU.

Associations Between Global Competence and Right-Leaning Population: Evidence From PISA 2018 and European Social Survey

“…From what was described in the previous sections, OECD's global competence does promote gender and racial equality, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, human rights protection, pro-immigrant attitudes, individual responsibility, and other principles that might be interpreted with caution by societies that have high population share of self-identified political right. It has been argued, that right-wing politics promote views that represent conservative and traditional cultural values (Mudde, 2016;Wondreys, 2021), also it is claimed, that right-leaning people having more pronounced negative attitudes towards immigrants throughout Europe (Inglehart and Norris, 2016;Deimantas, 2021). Thus, one could hypothesize, that OECD's global competence results might be negatively associated with the right-leaning population.…”

Attitudes toward demographic diversity in 16 advanced economies: Perceptions of conflict matters more than income

“…Specifically, we examined whether age, gender, education, religiosity and income are associated with anti‐diversity attitudes. Previous research suggests that being male, older and less educated are positively associated with anti‐diversity attitudes (Card et al., 2011; Deimantas, 2021; Ponce, 2017). However, results related to income and religiosity have been less consistent (Ceobanu & Escandell, 2010).…”

“…Factors known to predict attitudes toward demographic diversity are numerous, including the ideological climate of the host country, historical context, perceptions of immigration flows, perceived competition and threat, personality traits and demographic variables such as age, gender and education (e.g., Deimantas, 2021; Kim & Kim, 2021; for reviews, see Ceobanu & Escandell, 2010; Esses, 2021). These factors are often intertwined and sometimes difficult to disentangle, but a comprehensive understanding of their dynamics is critical to effectively understand perceptions of diversity.…”

“…For example, being male (Ponce, 2017) and having less education (Card et al., 2011) tend to be positively associated with anti‐immigrant attitudes. Age also shows positive correlations with anti‐immigrant attitudes (Deimantas, 2021). A less straightforward role for income emerges from the literature, with some studies showing a significant association and others showing no relationship with anti‐immigrant attitudes (Ceobanu & Escandell, 2010).…”