How perceptions of immigrants trigger feelings of economic and cultural threats in two welfare states

Sebastian Fietkau and Kasper M Hansen

European Union Politics, 2018, vol. 19, issue 1, 119-139

Abstract: Better understanding of attitudes toward immigration is crucial to avoid misperception of immigration in the public debate. Through two identical online survey experiments applying morphed faces of non-Western immigrants and textual vignettes, the authors manipulate complexion, education, family background, and gender in Denmark and Germany. For women, an additional split in which half of the women wore a headscarf is performed. In both countries, highly skilled immigrants are preferred to low-skilled immigrants. Danes are more skeptical toward non-Western immigration than Germans. Essentially, less educated Danes are very critical of accepting non-Western immigrants in their country. It is suggested that this difference is driven by a large welfare state in Denmark compared to Germany, suggesting a stronger fear in welfare societies that immigrants will exploit welfare benefits.

Keywords: Migration; opinion; opinion formation; survey experiment; welfare state (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:19:y:2018:i:1:p:119-139

DOI: 10.1177/1465116517734064

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