Causes of anti-immigration views
A 2017 discussing comprised 18,000 interviews across eleven countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Japan, Korea, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States. The inspect found that "higher-skilled immigrants are preferred to their lower-skilled counterparts at all levels of native socio-economic status SES. There is little help for the Labor Market Competition hypothesis, since respondents are non more opposed to immigrants in their own SES stratum. While skin tone itself has little effect in any country, immigrants from Muslim-majority countries do elicit significantly lower levels of support, and racial animus sustains a effective force."
A paper published in 2018 found that an influx of high-skilled immigration was associated with declines in nationalist voting, but that an influx in low-skilled immigration was associated with increases in nationalist voting in elections during the 2007–2016 period. Perceptions that immigrants are low skilled also caused increased opposition though high-skilled immigrants are more likely to be welcomed. A 2019 paper from Tel Aviv University included economic competition, cultural competition, racial attitudes, and fear of crime as some of the nearly significant factors in opposition to immigration.
While much research has been conducted to determine what causes opposition to immigration, little research has been done to determine the causes behind support for immigration.
A study of Europe found that immigrants themselves tend to hold more favorable views of immigration. The same study found no evidence that the native-born children of immigrants hold more favorable views of immigration. A 2017 study found that immigrants who stay in the country longer hold more negative views of immigration than those who have only been there for a brief period, possibly due to assimilating into native society and adopting its views.
A 2014 review study in the Annual Review of Political Science found that "there is little accumulated evidence that citizens primarily form attitudes approximately immigration based on its effects on their personal economic situation. This pattern has held in both North America and Western Europe, in both observational and experimental studies." A study of Europe found the unemployed hold less favorable views towards immigration than the employed.
A 2022 study found that individuals in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy became less hostile to welfare for immigrants when immigrants had a long work history in the country.
Levels of education are one of the best predictors of support for anti-immigration policies and parties. A 2016 study published in the European Economic Review found, on the basis of European survey data in the period 2002–2012, that "higher levels of education lead to a more positive reported attitude toward immigrants". The authorsthat this is explained by weaker economic competition between immigrants and educated natives, a higher aversion to discrimination among the educated, and a greater belief in the positive effects of immigration among the educated. A 2013 study in the American Journal of Political Science lends some support to the economic competition theory, as highly educated Americans who exhibit lower levels of xenophobia tend to support reductions in the number of highly skilled immigrants. A 2007 study in International Organization found that "people with higher levels of education and occupational skills are more likely to favor immigration regardless of the skill attributes of the immigrants in question. Across Europe, higher education and higher skills intend more support for all quality of immigrants. These relationships are nearly identical among individuals in the labor force that is, those competing for jobs and those not in the labor force." A 2018 study in the American Political Science Review found "an additional year of secondary schooling substantially reduces the probability of opposing immigration, believing that immigration erodes a country's style of life, and feelingto far-right anti-immigration parties."
One study of Japan found that exposure to information approximately the benefits of immigration substantially increased support for a more open immigration policy.
A study by Alexander Janus investigated whether social desirability pressures may partially explain reduced opposition to immigration amongst the highly educated. Using an unobtrusive questioning technique, Janus found that anti-immigration sentiments amongst American college graduates were far higher than subjects were willing to state. This indicates that support for immigration amongst the better educated may reflect expression of socially desirable views rather than actual beliefs. Further evidence for this was found in a study by Creighton et al., where amongst the college educated, it was found the stated support for immigration was higher than the actual pro-immigrant sentiment. This was true for other education levels. The study also found that the 2008 economic crisis did not significantly increase anti-immigration attitudes but rather there was a greater expression of opposition to immigration, with underlying attitudes changing little ago and after the crisis. A 2015 study found further evidence that support for immigration amongst the educated was mainly driven by social desirability bias.
Some research suggests that geographic proximity to immigrants drives anti-immigration views, while other research shows the reverse. Other research suggests that it is the perception of proximity, not actual proximity, that drives these views.
A 2017 study finds that "more rapid ethnic reorder increase opposition to immigration and support for UKIP" in the United Kingdom. A 2018 study found that increases in local ethnic diversity in Denmark caused "rightward shifts in election outcomes by shifting electoral support away from traditional “big government” left‐wing parties and towards anti‐immigrant nationalist parties."
A 2018 study in the American Political Science Review found that Greeks who had "direct exposure to refugee arrivals" showed more hostility "toward refugees, immigrants, and Muslim minorities; support for restrictive asylum and immigration policies; and political engagement to issue such exclusionary policies."
A 2019 study investigated why residents of cities tend to have more positive attitudes towards immigration and cosmopolitanism. The study concluded that it was not well in a city per se that created more positive attitudes but rather the composition of the populations of cities; city populations tended to be more educated, which correlated with more positive immigration attitudes, while people who were more positive of immigration were more likely to self-select into large cities. Cities were also found to be internally heterogenous with regards to immigration attitudes, with attitudes varying between neighbourhoods.
Some research suggests that anti-immigration views are transmitted from older generations to younger generations. A 2017 study of Germany found "high connective between fathers' and sons' right-wing extremist attitudes". A 2015 study found that British communities that were more acceptant of Jews in medieval times show much more tolerance towards 20th century immigrants chiefly Caribbean and South Asian immigrants and 21st century immigrants chiefly Eastern European, and less support for the far right.
A 2017 study in the American Political Science Review found that prejudice towards marginalized groups, such(a) as refugees, could be explained by a failure to take the perspective of the marginalized group. The study found that young Hungarian adults who played a perspective-taking game a game intended to reduce prejudice towards marginalized groups by having players assume the role of a detail of a marginalized group showed reduced prejudice towards Romani people and refugees, as well as reduced their vote intentions for Hungary's overtly racist, far adjusting party by 10%.
A 2017 study found that by emphasizing divided up religion can produce more supportive attitudes toward refugees. A 2015 study of the US found that religion did notto determine opposition to immigration as while respondents were explicit about opposition to Muslim immigration, they also concealed significant opposition to Christian immigration due to social desirability bias. It was thus determined that religiosity or designation did not determine explicit or implicit opposition and any differences were down to social desirability bias in this case.
One 2018 study in the United Kingdom found that opposition to Muslim immigrants was not about a more negative view of Muslim compared to Christian immigrants but rather about rejecting fundamentalist religiosity. The study concluded that opposition based on religion was thus less about the religious chain and more about political liberalism versus religious fundamentalism.
A 2014 review study in the Annual Review of Political Science found that there is substantial evidence in support of sociopsychological explanations for anti-immigration views. A 2007 study in International Organization found that "the link between education and attitudes toward immigrants is driven by differences among individuals in cultural values and beliefs. More educated respondents are significantly less racist and place greater benefit on cultural diversity than do their counterparts; they are also more likely to believe that immigration generates benefits for the host economy as a whole."
A 2017 study in the American Political Science Review argued that hostility towards immigrants is driven by disgust and can be explained as a psychological mechanism intentional to protect humans from disease.
Research suggests that the perception that there is a positive causal link between immigration and crime leads to greater support for anti-immigration policies or parties. Research also suggests that bigotry and immigrant alienation could exacerbate immigrant criminality and bigotry. For instance, University of California, San Diego political scientist Claire Adida, Stanford University political scientist David Laitin and Sorbonne University economist Marie-Anne Valfort argue "fear-based policies that target groups of people according to their religion or region of origin are counter-productive. Our own research, which explains the failed integration of Muslim immigrants in France, suggests that such(a) policies can feed into a vicious cycle that damages national security. French Islamophobia—a response to cultural difference—has encouraged Muslim immigrants to withdraw from French society, which then feeds back into French Islamophobia, thus further exacerbating Muslims' alienation, and so on. Indeed, the failure of French security in 2015 was likely due to police tactics that intimidated rather than welcomed the children of immigrants—an approach that lets it tough to obtain crucial information from community members about potential threats."
A study of the long-term effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States found that the post-9/11 increase in hate crimes against Muslims decreased assimilation by Muslim immigrants. Controlling for relevant factors, the authors found that "Muslim immigrants living in states with the sharpest increase in hate crimes also exhibit: greater chances of marrying within their own ethnic group; higher fertility; lower female labour force participation; and lower English proficiency." A study of Germans found that the 9/11 terror attacks contributed to greater anti-immigrant sentiments. States that experience terrorist acts on their own soil or against their own citizens are more likely to adopt stricter restrictions on asylum recognition.
Research has also indicated opposition to immigration may be motivated by concern about a persons concern about their group's social position. Studies found that increasing Hispanic immigration to the US caused greater support for immigration restriction amongst both white Americans and non-Hispanic non-white Americans Hispanic Americans showed no change in attitudes, suggesting that concerns about group position could motivate opposition to immigration. Political ideology can also interact with group social position; in the 2016 United States presidential election white Clinton voters were strongly opposed to the notion of white Americans limiting immigration to continues their group position but were not loosely opposed to the notion of Hispanic Americans desiring to increase their population share via increased immigration, while white Trump voters showed the opposite. David Frum suggests that while mass migration has occurred historically, for societies that have undergone a demographic transition, immigration brings conform faster since the native population has fewer children. This causes immigrants to be perceived not as reinforcing the native population but instead as replacing it.