Can Attitudes Toward Immigrant Explain Social Integration in Europe? EU versus Non-EU Migrant

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between attitudes toward migrants and social integration. Specifically, we consider two types of migration flow: migration flow from EU countries and migration flow from non-EU countries. The aims of this paper are twofold: (1) we want to understand whether an inclusive attitude towards migrants can contribute to their efforts to integrate with the receiving society (2) we want to understand whether the potential impact is the same across different migrant groups (EU vs. non-EU). Using data from 33 mainly European countries over the period 2003–2016 and controlling for common integration determinants such as inflation, foreign direct investment and educational attainment, our results indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between inclusive and good attitude toward migrants and social integration. We also in the robustness sections, identify that the size of this impact differs across different subcomponents of attitudes and integration, these results are robust to alternative estimation techniques that take cares of endogeneity (System GMM, 2SLS, and Lewbel 2SLS).