Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:46:39.791Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Support for Immigration Restriction in the United Kingdom: Resource Scarcity, Ethnicity or Poor Origins?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Yvonni Markaki
Yvonni Markaki*
Affiliation:
Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex
*
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Research on anti-immigrant attitudes in the United Kingdom in the past has focused primarily on feelings of prejudice driven by local concentrations of ethnic minorities. The immigration debate, however, has arguably changed since the EU expansions and the economic crisis of the past decade. This paper tests whether public support for immigration restriction is empirically driven by factors such as resource scarcity and economic stagnation, skill supply of native and immigrant workers, and the origin of immigrants from poorer countries within and outside the EU. Survey data from the European Social Survey between 2002 and 2010 are matched with regional level indicators calculated using the UK Labour Force Surveys. Findings suggest that support for immigration restriction is higher in regions where more immigrants are unemployed, but lower in regions where more natives are unemployed for longer than a year. Both the origin and ethnicity of the immigrant population appear to play a role in immigration policy preferences among native respondents.

Keywords

Immigrationattitudesethnicityoriginlabour marketskillsF22J15J61R23
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 229 , August 2014 , pp. R31 - R52
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Data used are supplied by the European Social Survey website, the UK Data Archive (UK LFS micro-data) and Eurostat (GDP growth). A replication dataset and full empirical results are available from the author on request.

References

Barlow, F.K.Paolini, S.Pedersen, A.Hornsey, M.J.Radke, H.R.M.Harwood, J.Rubin, M.Sibley, C.G. (2012), ‘The contact caveat: negative contact predicts increased prejudice more than positive contact predicts reduced prejudice’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38 (12, pp. 1629–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Billiet, J.Meuleman, B.De Witte, H. (2014), ‘The relationship between ethnic threat and economic insecurity in times of economic crisis: analysis of European social survey data’, Migration Studies, 10.1093/migration/mnu023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumer, H. (1958), ‘Race prejudice as a sense of group position’, Pacific Sociological Review, I (Spring), pp. 3–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobo, L. (1983), ‘Whites’ opposition to busing: symbolic racism or realistic group conflict?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45 (6, pp. 1196–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonacich, E. (1972), ‘A theory of ethnic antagonism: the split labor market’, American Sociological Review, 37, pp. 447–559.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Borjas, G.J. (1999), ‘The economic analysis of immigration’, Handbook of Labor Economics, pp. 1697–760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowyer, B.T. (2009), ‘The contextual determinants of whites’ racial attitudes in England’, British Journal of Political Science, 39 (3, pp. 559–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branton, R.P.Jones, B.S. (2005), ‘Reexamining racial attitudes: the conditional relationship between diversity and socioeconomic environment’, American Journal of Political Science, 49 (2, pp. 359–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christ, O.Hewstone, M.Tausch, N.Wagner, U.Voci, A.Hughes, J.Cairns, E. (2010), ‘Direct contact as a moderator of extended contact effects: cross-sectional and longitudinal impact on outgroup attitudes, behavioral intentions, and attitude certainty’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36 (12, pp. 1662–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Citrin, J.Green, D.P.Muste, C.Wong, C. (1997), ‘Public opinion toward immigration reform: the role of economic motivations’, The Journal of Politics, 59 (3, pp. 858–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawley, H.Drinkwater, S.Kauser, R. (2013), ‘Regional variations in attitudes towards refugees: evidence from Great Britain’, IZA Discussion Paper No. 7647.Google Scholar
Dustmann, C.Fabbri, F.Preston, I. (2005), ‘The impact of immigration on the British labour market’, The Economic Journal, 115 (507, F324–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dustmann, C.Frattini, T. (2013), ‘Immigration: the European experience’, inDavid, C.Steven, R. (eds), Immigration, Poverty, and Socioeconomic Inequality, New York, Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Dustmann, C.Preston, I. (2001), ‘Attitudes to ethnic minorities, ethnic context and location decisions’, The Economic Journal, 111 (470, pp. 353–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elkin, S.L.Panning, W.H. (1975), ‘Structural effects and individual attitudes: racial prejudice in English cities’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, 39 (2, pp. 159–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Facchini, G.Mayda, A.M. (2009), ‘Does the welfare state affect individual attitudes toward immigrants? Evidence across countries’, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 91 (2, pp. 295–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, R.Goodwin, M.J. (2010), ‘Angry white men: individual and contextual predictors of support for the British National Party’, Political Studies, 58 (1, pp. 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainmueller, J.Hiscox, M.J. (2010), ‘Attitudes towards highly skilled and low skilled immigration: evidence from a survey experiment’, American Political Science Review, 104 (1, pp. 61–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, D.J. (2011), ‘National debates, local responses: the origins of local concern about immigration in Britain and the United States’, British Journal of Political Science, 41 (3, pp. 499–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, R.Gendall, P.Trlin, A.Spoonley, P. (2010), ‘Immigration, multiculturalism and geography: inter-group contact and attitudes to immigrants and cultural diversity in New Zealand’, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 19 (3, pp. 343–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markaki, Y.Longhi, S. (2013), ‘What determines attitudes to immigration in European countries? An analysis at the regional level’, Migration Studies, 1 (3, pp. 311–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Middleton, R. (1976), ‘Regional differences in prejudice’, American Sociological Review, 41 (1, pp. 94–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moulton, B.R. (1990), ‘An illustration of a pitfall in estimating the effects of aggregate variables on micro units’, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 72 (2, pp. 334–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillian, L. (1995), ‘Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice in Europe’, American Sociological Review, 60 (4, pp. 586–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillian, L. (1996), ‘Group threat and regional change in attitudes toward African-Americans’, The American Journal of Sociology, 102 (3, pp. 816–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowthorn, D.Coleman, R. (2004), ‘The economic effects of immigration into the United Kingdom’, Population and Development Review, 30 (4, pp. 579–624.Google Scholar
Rustenbach, E. (2010), ‘Sources of negative attitudes toward immigrants in Europe: a multi-level analysis’, International Migration Review, 44 (1, pp. 53–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaefer, R.T. (1973), ‘Party affiliation and prejudice in Britain’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2 (3, pp. 296–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaefer, R.T. (1975), ‘Regional differences in prejudice’, Regional Studies, 9 (1, pp. 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, S.L. (2007), ‘Anti-immigrant attitudes in Europe: outgroup size and perceived ethnic threat’, European Sociological Review, 24 (1, pp. 53–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semyonov, M.Glikman, A. (2009), ‘Ethnic residential segregation, social contacts, and anti-minority attitudes in European societies’, European Sociological Review, 25 (6, pp. 693–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slaughter, K.F.Scheve, M.J. (2001), ‘Labor market competition and individual preferences over immigration policy’, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 83 (1, pp. 133–45.Google Scholar
Stein, R.M.Post, S.S.Rinden, A.L. (2000), ‘Reconciling context and contact effects on racial attitudes’, Political Research Quarterly, 53 (2, pp. 285–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Studiar, D.T. (1977), ‘Social context and attitudes toward coloured immigrants’, The British Journal of Sociology, 28 (2, pp. 168–84.Google Scholar
Studiar, D.T. (1978), ‘Policy voting in Britain: the colored immigration issue in the 1964, 1966, and 1970 General Elections’, The American Political Science Review, 72 (1, pp. 46–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolsma, J.Lubbers, M.Coenders, M. (2008), ‘Ethnic competition and opposition to ethnic intermarriage in the Netherlands: a multi-level approach’, European Sociological Review, 24 (2, pp. 215–30.Google Scholar
Wagner, U.Christ, O.Pettigrew, T.F.Stellmacher, J.Wolf, C. (2006), ‘Prejudice and minority proportion contact instead of threat effects’, Social Psychology Quarterly, 69 (4, pp. 380–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wessel, T. (2009), ‘Does diversity in urban space enhance intergroup contact and tolerance?’, Geografiska Annaler Series B-Human Geography, 91B (1, pp. 5–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar