timelets

via marginalrevolution.com

We examine native citizens’ perceptions of and attitudes towards immigration, and how these relate to support for redistribution.

We design and run large-scale international surveys on a representative sample of around 22,500 respondents from six countries (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.).

In the survey, we define an “immigrant” as somebody legally living in the country of the respondent." The surveys – which are restricted to natives – begin with detailed background information questions about respondents’ income, sector of work, family status, zip code, whether he has immigrant parents, political orientation, and voting. We then ask respondents about their perceptions of immigrants along many dimensions, which is one of our key contributions.

According to our surveys, natives from six developed countries have strongly biased views about immigrants. They think that there are many more immigrants than there actually are. They also have incorrect views about the origins of immigrants: they overestimate the share of immigrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and the share of Muslim immigrants, and they sharply underestimate the share of Christian immigrants. Natives also believe that immigrants are poorer, more reliant on the host country’s welfare state, more unemployed, and less educated than they actually are. All these misperceptions contribute to making natives more averse to redistribution, as they perceive that immigrants are culturally and religiously more distinct from them and that they benefit disproportionately from the generosity of the welfare state.

Misperceptions about immigrants, and the subsequent lack of support for immigration and redistribution, are starkest among three groups of respondents: the non-college educated, the low-skilled working in immigration intensive sectors, and right-wing respondents.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w24733