Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T06:30:58.967Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Public Attitudes toward Young Immigrant Men

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2018

DALSTON G. WARD*
Affiliation:
ETH Zurich
*
*Dalston G. Ward, Postdoctoral Fellow, Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford University and ETH Zurich; Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, dalston.ward@gess.ethz.ch.

Abstract

Young men often make up a large share of newly arriving immigrant populations. How this impacts attitudes is unclear: young men have the potential to make substantial economic contributions, meaning attitudes toward them may be more favorable. However, young men may be seen as security and cultural threats, exacerbating anti-immigrant attitudes. I conduct a conjoint experiment on a sample of 2,100 Germans, asking them to evaluate groups of immigrants with randomly varying shares of young men. The results show that groups of immigrants with a large share of young men receive substantially less support. Further tests reveal that respondents also perceive of these groups as likely to pose security and cultural threats; there is no evidence that young men are viewed as having high economic potential. These results have implications for the importance of economic, cultural, and security concerns in underpinning attitudes toward immigrants.

Type
Letter
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research is supported by NSF grant number 1560637. I thank Michael Bechtel, Alexandra Dufresne, Matthew Gabel, Dino Hadzic, Dominik Hangartner, Suzanne Hart, Jonathan Homola, Jae-Hee Jung, Jeong Hyun Kim, Jay Krehbiel, Miguel Pereira, Nelson Ruiz-Guarin, and Margit Tavits as well as the editor and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. An earlier version of this research was presented at the University of Illinois. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SQH6IF.

References

REFERENCES

Bansak, Kirk, Hainmueller, Jens, and Hangartner, Dominik. 2016. “How Economic, Humanitarian, and Religious Concerns Shape European Attitudes toward Asylum Seekers.” Science 354 (6309): 217–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. 2015. “Das Bundesamt in Zahlen 2015: Asyl, Migration und Integration.” https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Publikationen/Broschueren/bundesamt-in-zahlen-2015.pdf.Google Scholar
Dancygier, Rafaela M., and Laitin, David D.. 2014. “Immigration into Europe: Economic Discrimination, Violence, and Public Policy.” Annual Review of Political Science 17: 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dancygier, Rafaela M., and Donnelly, Michael J.. 2013. “Sectoral Economies, Economic Contexts, and Attitudes toward Immigration.” Journal of Politics 75 (1): 17–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erisen, Cengiz, and Kentmen-Cin, Cigdem. 2017. “Tolerance and Perceived Threat toward Muslim Immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands.” European Union Politics 18 (1): 73–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fietkau, Sebastian, and Hansen, Kasper M.. 2018. “How Perceptions of Immigrants Trigger Feelings of Economic and Cultural Threats in Two Welfare States.” European Union Politics 19 (1): 119–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainmueller, Jens, and Hopkins, Daniel J.. 2014. “Public Attitudes toward Immigration.” Annual Review of Political Science 17: 225–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainmueller, Jens, Hopkins, Daniel J., and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2014. “Causal Inference in Conjoint Analysis: Understanding Multidimensional Choices via Stated Preference Experiments.” Political Analysis 22 (1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainmueller, Jens, Hangartner, Dominik, and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2015. “Validating Vignette and Conjoint Survey Experiments against Real-World Behavior.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112 (8): 2395–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hopkins, Daniel J. 2015. “The Upside of Accents: Language, Inter-Group Difference, and Attitudes toward Immigration.” British Journal of Political Science 45 (3): 531–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huysmans, Jef. 2006. The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janus, Alexander L. 2010. “The Influence of Social Desirability Pressures on Expressed Immigration Attitudes.” Social Science Quarterly 91 (4): 928–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kam, Cindy D. 2007. “Implicit Attitudes, Explicit Choices: When Subliminal Priming Predicts Candidate Preference?Political Behavior 29 (3): 343–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahav, Gallya, and Courtemanche, Marie. 2012. “The Ideological Effects of Framing Threat on Immigration and Civil Liberties.” Political Behavior 34 (3): 477–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rich, Anna-Katharina. 2016. “Asylantragsteller in Deutschland im Jahr 2015. Sozialstruktur, Qualifikationsniveau und Berufstätigkeit.” In Kurzanalysen des Forschungszentrums Migration, Integration und Asyl. Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, Nürnberg, Germany, 1–11.Google Scholar
Sides, John, and Citrin, Jack. 2007. “European Opinion about Immigration: The Role of Identities, Interests and Information.” British Journal of Political Science 37 (3): 477–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., Hagendoorn, Louk, and Prior, Markus. 2004. “Predisposing Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary Reactions to Immigrant Minorities.” American Political Science Review 98 (1): 35–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turper, Sedef, Iyengar, Shanto, Aarts, Kees, and van Gerven, Minna. 2015. “Who Is Less Welcome? The Impact of Individuating Cues on Attitudes towards Immigrants.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 41 (2): 239–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
vhw-Bundesverband für Wohnen und Stadtentwicklung. 2016. “vhw-Kommunalbefragung 2016: Herausforderungen, Flüchtlingskrise vor Ort.” https://www.vhw.de/fileadmin/user_upload/08_publikationen/studien/PDFs/Studien_Befragungen/2016_vhw-Kommunalbefragung_zu_den_Herausforderungen_Gefluechteter_vor_Ort.pdf.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Ward supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Ward supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 238.9 KB
Supplementary material: Link
Link