Attitudes towards immigration in Europe

Abstract

This paper examines attitudes towards immigration across a range of countries in Europe. In line with the current literature we find evidence that both economic and non-economic factors shape attitudes towards the arrival of immigrants. However, we also show that the relative importance of these factors depends crucially on the race of the arriving immigrants. We find that economic considerations are more likely to shape attitudes towards the arrival of same race immigrants, while immigrants of a different race are perceived to have a negative impact on the country´s culture. Moreover, educated natives perceive labour market competition from arriving immigrants of the same race only