What Determines Attitudes to Immigration in European Countries? An Analysis at the Regional Level

Yvonni Markaki and Simonetta Longhi

No 2012032, Norface Discussion Paper Series from Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London

Abstract: Different disciplines within the social sciences have produced large theoretical and empirical literatures to explain the determinants of anti-immigration attitudes. We bring together these literatures in a unified framework and identify testable hypothesis on what characteristics of the individual and of the local environment are likely to have an impact on anti-immigration attitudes. While most of the previous literature focuses on the explanation of attitudes at the individual level, we focus on the impact on regional characteristics (the local context). Our aim is to explain why people living in different regions differ in terms of their attitudes towards immigration. We isolate the impact of regions from regressions using individual-level data and explain this residual regional heterogeneity in attitudes with aggregate level indicators of regional characteristics. We find that regions with a higher percentage of immigrants born outside the EU and a higher unemployment rate among the immigrant population show a higher probability that natives express negative attitudes to immigration. Regions with a higher unemployment rate among natives however, show less pronounced anti-immigrant attitudes.

Keywords: Anti-immigration attitudes; Regional characteristics; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J15 J61 R19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.norface-migration.org/publ_uploads/NDP_32_12.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: What Determines Attitudes to Immigration in European Countries? An Analysis at the Regional Level (2012)
Working Paper: What determines attitudes to immigration in European countries? An analysis at the regional level (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nor:wpaper:2012032

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Norface Discussion Paper Series from Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Norface Migration Administrator () and Thomas Cornelissen ().