Attitudes toward immigrants in European societies

Abstract

Since the middle of the 20th century, immigrants, ex-colonials, labor migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees arrived in European societies in ever-increasing numbers, and the migration flows continue until today. Some even suggest that the flows, especially of refugees from the war zones in the Middle East and Africa, actually intensified dramatically in recent years. Consequently, the social composition and ethnic fabric of many European traditional nation states have changed. Alongside these changes, we find a marked increase in the number of societal actors who address the questions about the terms of inclusion or exclusion of immigrants and the types of immigrants in society. That is, with more immigrants making Europe their permanent home, Europeans citizens and politicians began raising questions about the social, political, economic, and legal rights of the immigrants and especially about the place of immigrants in European societies. They also raise questions about the social, cultural, and economic impact that immigrants exert on host societies. Indeed, the status of immigrants in European societies is now one of the major issues of the public debate in contemporary Europe. The public and political debate regarding immigrants' place in society progressed in recent years from a labor market problem to a social, cultural, and political problem with greater emphasis on the issue of national identity. In this regard, it is important to note that the lion's share of the immigrants in Europe arrived as an initial response to the economic needs of the European countries in the middle of the previous century. Many European countries were (and some still are) in dire need of labor, especially cheap labor, due to a steady decline in the population and lack of native workforce (resulting from declining fertility and aging population). That is, immigrants, labor migrants, and 'guest workers' were invited and recruited to perform jobs that the local populations were unwilling or unable to take (mostly menial, low-skilled low-paying jobs in declining profit industries). Importation of immigrants appeared to be a simple, temporary solution to a domestic problem and market demand in Western European countries. The demand for workforce in Western Europe was met by the readily available supply of workers in poor countries outside Europe (and at times by the readily available supply of workers from poor countries in Eastern or Southern Europe). In other words, immigrants were attracted to Europe (push factors) from countries ravaged by high unemployment, poverty, and political instability and, at times, ravaged by war, to societies (pull factors) characterized by prosperous markets, high salaries, and political stability; to countries that offer a better quality of life and higher standard of living for themselves 732183C OS0010.

Religioznost i stavovi prema imigrantima u Hrvatskoj

“…Na važnost društveno-povijesnoga konteksta izričito upozoravaju autori koji su pokušali usporedno analizirati stavove prema imigrantima i imigraciji bez obzira na to povezuju li ih s religijom i religioznošću ili ne (v. npr. Davidov i Semyonov, 2017;Fullin, 2016;Nagayoshi i Hjerm, 2015;Ceobanu i Escandell, 2010;. Ceobanu i Escandell upozoravaju da kontekstne razlike u višenacionalnim istraživanjima predstavljaju istraživačima problem i suočavaju ih s teorijskim ograničenjima i metodološkim izazovima.…”

Prejudice Against Immigrants Symptomizes a Larger Syndrome, Is Strongly Diminished by Socioeconomic Development, and the UK Is Not an Outlier: Insights From the WVS, EVS, and EQLS Surveys

“…Including this higher-level variable did not change the GDP effects. This is not necessarily strong evidence against the Contact Hypothesis: (1) contact may reduce prejudice as much prior research suggests (Hewstone and Swart, 2011), but status threat effects (Davidov and Semyonov, 2017) may also be present at the same time and they may cancel each other out; (2) the national percent of immigrants is, at best, a weak indicator of contact, because residential and social segregation may severely restrict social interaction. All these results point to the UK as being a very typical prosperous EU country when it comes to ethno-religious prejudice generally, and specifically to prejudice against immigrant/foreign workers.…”

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