Public opinion and immigration in Europe : can regional migration flows predict public attitudes to immigration

Abstract

This article investigates how European public opinion has responded to short-term variations in regional foreign-born immigration over the past decade (2010-2019). Combining data from the European Social Survey and the European Union Labour Force Survey, we test how natives’ opinions over migration policy and the contribution of immigrants to society have changed with the net rate of international migrants in 183 EU regions from 21 countries. We find that while European Union natives living in regions with a higher share of foreign-born populations are generally less anti[1]immigrant, a short-term increase in the number of immigrants within a given region is associated with more negative attitudes in Western Europe only. Moreover, our gender and origin decomposition indicate that male immigrants and those born outside of the European Union are driving most of the negative association between public opinion and changes in the level of immigration in Western European countries, while the educational attainment of migrants makes little difference. The scope of our analysis for Central and Eastern Europe is more limited due to the smaller share of foreign[1]born immigrants living in those regions. Despite this caveat, our analysis suggests that inflows of European migrants in Central and Eastern Europe are generally associated with more positive views towards immigration, regardless of their skill level. Our findings demonstrate the importance of temporal dynamics for attitudes to immigration. They also point to the need to analyse not only cross-country differences but also regional differences in those attitudes.