2007): Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration

The few economically motivated papers on attitudes towards migration interprets results within models of labour market competition. Concerns about the welfare system may however be an additional factor to fuel hostility towards immigrants if they are considered to be competitors for these resources. Hostility towards immigration may also have racial motives that are unrelated to any economic considerations. We try to separate racial and economic components to attitudes towards immigration. Our analysis is based on the British Social Attitudes Survey, which includes questions on attitudes towards immigration from di®erent minority groups, as well as attitudes towards related concerns, like job security and bene¯t expenditures. Based on this unusually rich data source, we relate preferences towards immigration to the three factors by specifying and estimating a multiple factor model. Our results suggest that racial issues are considerably more important than economic concerns in driving attitudes, and particularly so amongst less educated and lower skilled sections of the population. We do not ¯nd strong evidence for the hypothesis that labour market concerns among manual and unskilled workers lead to opposition towards further immigration. ¤We are grateful for comments and suggestions from Joseph Altonji, George Borjas, David Card