Do Europeans' perceived income levels affect their attitudes towards immigrants? A regression analysis of individual self-reported comfort in income vis a vis attitudes towards immigration using the European Social Survey.

摘要

This paper explores individual economic determinants of attitudes towards immigration in 15 European countries, using the 2014 round of the European Social Survey. Most literature tends to focus on economic data when analyzing attitudes towards immigration. While this can be useful, it may miss the fact that individuals' attitudes are often shaped by their perceived, rather than actual, economic status. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining respondents' self-assessed comfort in their household incomes as a determinant of their attitudes towards immigration. My findings show that there is a statistically significant relationship between how comfortable a respondent is with his/her own household income and how he/she perceives immigrants. Additional robustness checks were conducted, in addition to an instrumental variable analysis, to strengthen the validity of these findings. Given the recent influx of immigration, the largest since World War II, European governments could benefit to better understand their citizens' attitudes towards immigration. It could be beneficial to develop more integrative policy that is inclusive of both the local citizens and immigrants.