What Drives Individual Attitude towards Immigration in South Africa?

Giovanni Facchini, Anna Maria Mayda and Mariapia Mendola

No 325, Development Working Papers from Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates the determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration in South Africa using the 1996, 2001 and 2007 rounds of the World Value Survey. The main question we want to answer is whether South African public opinion on migration is affected by the potential labor market competition of migrants towards natives. We investigate this issue by estimating the impact of survey respondents' individual skill on their pro-migration attitudes. Our estimates show that the impact of individual skill - measured both with educational attainment and an occupation based measure - is positive and significant in both 1996 and 2001. Given that in both years immigrants to South Africa are on average more skilled than natives, we conclude that the labor-market channel does not play a role in preference formation over immigration. What might explain the positive impact of individual skill are noneconomic determinants.

Keywords: Immigration Attitudes; South Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50
Date: 2011-12-27, Revised 2011-12-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-mig and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: What Drives Individual Attitudes towards Immigration in South Africa? (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:csl:devewp:325

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