Who Is Against Immigration? A Cross-Country Investigation of Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants

2006/08/01 by Anna Maria Mayda · 11 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Demographic economics #Demography #Developed country #Developing country #Economic growth #Economics #Immigration #Migration and Labor Dynamics #Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy #Political science #Population #Sociology #Taxation and Compliance Studies #Test (biology)

paper · doi:10.1162/rest.88.3.510

openalex publication_date 2006/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

This paper empirically analyzes economic and noneconomic determinants of individual attitudes toward immigrants, within and across countries. The two survey data sets used, covering a wide range of developed and developing countries, make it possible to test for interactive effects between individual characteristics and country-level attributes. In particular, theory predicts that the correlation between pro-immigration attitudes and individual skill should be related to the skill composition of natives relative to immigrants in the destination country. Skilled individuals should favor immigration in countries where natives are more skilled than immigrants and oppose it otherwise. Results based on direct and indirect measures of the relative skill composition are consistent with these predictions. Noneconomic variables also are correlated with immigration attitudes, but they don't alter significantly the labor-market results.

Citations

• Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel
• Public Opinion Toward Immigration Reform: The Role of Economic Motivations
• Economics and Identity*

Cited by

• Public Attitudes Toward Immigration
• Economic Explanations for Opposition to Immigration: Distinguishing between Prevalence and Conditional Impact
• Sources of Negative Attitudes toward Immigrants in Europe: A Multi-Level Analysis
• The Effects of 9/11 on Attitudes toward Immigration and the Moderating Role of Education
• Has Opposition to Immigration Increased in the United States after the Economic Crisis? An Experimental Approach
• Intergenerational Correlations of Extreme Right‐Wing Party Preferences and Attitudes toward Immigration
• Immigration and House Prices in the UK
• Free Movement, Open Borders, and the Global Gains from Labor Mobility
• IMMIGRATION, WAGES, AND COMPOSITIONAL AMENITIES
• Do Employers Support Immigration?
• Opposition to immigration [wikipedia]