Europeans´ reactions to immigrants: it´s (not only) the economy, stupid!

Survey data shows that Europeans are divided concerning immigration. This project aims at shedding light on this heterogeneity. Using data from the European Social Survey, we first explore differences regarding the impact of immigration on the economy of a country and on its quality of life. We further enrich our analysis by adding another important layer: the cultural and economic background of the immigrant. We study attitudes towards immigration both within and between 19 European countries, using individual and country-level explanatory variables. We find that citizens tend to be more averse towards immigrants coming from different ethnical backgrounds and from poor countries outside Europe. Moreover, at an individual level, socio-demographic explanatory variables are found significant to explain attitudes towards immigration, as well as individual economic factors, political factors and values and culture. There are also important country-level explanatory factors, such as education levels, average population age, share -born population, and social net benefits