Public Attitudes to Immigration in the Aftermath of COVID-19: Little Change in Policy Preferences, Big Drops in Issue Salience

Abstract

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected public attitudes toward immigration? Long-term evidence in Europe and the United States suggests attitudes to immigration are relatively stable and, in some cases, becoming more favorable with high volatility instead of the perceived importance of the issue. However, theoretically a global pandemic could exacerbate people's fears of outsiders or that migration may contribute to the disease. By contrast, attitudes could remain stable if their distal drivers prove to be robust enough to withstand the shock of COVID-19. We draw from Eurobarometer data from 2014 to 2021 across 28 European countries, weekly national survey data during the outbreak from the United States and individual panel data from the United Kingdom and Germany to find little systematic change in immigration preferences and no country-level correlation between the observed changes and the outbreak's severity. Instead, the perceived importance of immigration has consistently and significantly decreased. These findings suggest that, if COVID-19 is to have an impact on attitudes to migration, it is likely to emerge via longer-term means, such as early-life socialization and value change, rather than reactions to the immediate pandemic shock.

Instrumentally Inclusive: The Political Psychology of Homonationalism

“…First, and of theoretical significance for our argument, the salience of concerns related to immigration and ethnic out-group (Muslim) rejection is, unlike the United Kingdom, marginal and significantly below the average observed in other West European nations (Dennison and Geddes 2019;Encarnación 2004). In a low-salience context and where aggregate public opinion on non-European migration is consistently net positive (Dennison, Kustov, and Geddes 2023), the incentives to demarcate oneself by in-group and out-group status are reduced and, consequently, may have less of a moderating role on responses to out-group positions. Second, public support for LGBT+ rights issues, as cross-national observational data on LGB and T+ inclusive education in Europe demonstrates (Supplementary Figure A3), is particularly high in Spain and the country, under the leadership of the then-governing Socialist party (PSOE), was one of the pioneering "early movers" on equal marriage legislation (Calvo 2007;Kollman 2007).…”

Looking for your cross‐group friends after the breakout? Children's intergroup contact behaviours before and after the onset of COVID‐19

“…Exposure to immigration is likely to make immigration a more salient issue and thereby worsen attitudes towards immigrants (Hangartner et al, 2019 ; Steinmayr, 2021 ). Yet, since its emergence, the pandemic and its consequences have become one of the most salient problems around the globe, which may have overshadowed the importance of other societal issues such as the refugee crisis (Dennison & Geddes, 2020 ). For example, MetroPoll ( 2021 ), a prominent social research company in Turkey, reported a sharp and persistent decline (from 4.8% to ~0.8%) in the amount of people who considered Syrian refugees as the most important issue in Turkey after the surge of COVID‐19.…”

Model of Social and Psychological Adaptation of Women Married to Foreigners

“…Unfortunately, due to a false understanding of the phenomenon of political correctness, an open and deep dialogue associated with contradictions in the interaction of different ethnic groups and cultures is very difficult [31]. In addition, some critics of modern approaches to migration, as noted by A. Giddens, can turn to xenophobia [14]. At the moment, there is a danger for scientists to lose objectivity and neutrality by deviating either to the left (ignore ethnic and religious differences) or to the right (demonize migrants or sympathize with nationalists' ideas).…”