Attitude of Russians towards immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021)

Abstract

The objective of the author was to identify the presence, nature and factors of changes in the attitude of Russians towards immigrants during the coronavirus pandemic. It was revealed that the pandemic exacerbated the problems of natural population decline, and migration flows decreased, thereby reducing the compensation for natural decline by the influx of immigrants. On the one hand, this could increase the negative attitude of the host society towards immigrants, exacerbating the negative consequences of the coronavirus for society. On the other hand, the reduced “contact” with immigrants could switch the perception from immigrants to more acute problems, thereby making the attitude more neutral. For the empirical basis of the analysis the data of the European Social Survey for 2018 were used (for comparison with the pre-pandemic level of attitudes towards immigrants), as well as data from the Department for Comparative Political Studies of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FCTAS RAS) for 2020–2021. The results of the analysis demonstrated that the assessment of the changes brought by immigrants to the economy, culture and everyday life of the country remains predominantly negative among Russians. The assessment of the consequences for the economy became more neutral during the study period, the perception of the consequences for the daily life of the country practically did not change, but the assessment of the consequences for culture became more negative. The regression analysis showed that the predictors of the negative attitude of Russians towards immigrants during the pandemic were: the perception of the acuteness of the problems of interethnic relations and the influx of visitors, the problem of increasing unemployment and the education of youth and adolescents, violation of the norms of public behaviour, as well as tension between men and women, the type of settlement (the larger it is, the more negative the attitude). Positive predictors turned out to be the level of institutional trust, age (the younger, the better the attitude), as well as awareness of the severity of the problem of population decline and low fertility in Russia.