Abstract
Does increasing immigration affect natives’ attitudes towards immigrants? A significant volume of research has been conducted in Western contexts to explore this question. However, we know little about whether findings observed in Western societies translate to non-Western contexts. At the same time, there is a paucity of research into whether increasing immigration exerts differential-effects among different groups of individuals. Using Japanese and British longitudinal data, this study firstly compares and contrasts how immigrant-share in an environment affects anti-immigrant sentiment in Japan and Great Britain. Secondly, it explores two potential drivers of heterogeneity in the impact of immigration across individuals: (a) perceived financial situation, and (b) views towards the role government should play in issues of support for the vulnerable. Applying fixed-effects panel data modelling, the results show increasing immigration harms attitudes towards immigrants. Furthermore, these negative effects are stronger for those who perceive their financial situation is worse, and among those who lean further to the left on the role of government. Interestingly, these results are highly similar in Japan and the UK. Thus, these findings support similar mechanisms of the group-threat theory operating among natives in two distinct contexts.
Highlights
IntroductionTwo important theories on intergroup relations developed in Western societies, the group-threat and intergroup contact theories, have posited competing negative- and positive-consequences for how immigration affects antiimmigrant sentiment (e.g., Pottie-Sherman and Wilkes 2017; Quillian 1995)
Does an increase in the size of immigrants in an environment affect natives’ attitudes towards immigrants? Two important theories on intergroup relations developed in Western societies, the group-threat and intergroup contact theories, have posited competing negative- and positive-consequences for how immigration affects antiimmigrant sentiment (e.g., Pottie-Sherman and Wilkes 2017; Quillian 1995)
Immigration and attitudes towards immigration in Japan The first stage involves testing whether increasing immigration is associated with more negative attitudes towards immigrants and immigration in Japan
Summary
Two important theories on intergroup relations developed in Western societies, the group-threat and intergroup contact theories, have posited competing negative- and positive-consequences for how immigration affects antiimmigrant sentiment (e.g., Pottie-Sherman and Wilkes 2017; Quillian 1995) To test these competing models, extensive research has been conducted from various perspectives, applying different measurements (e.g., of immigration, anti-immigrant attitudes, etc.), different geographic units of analysis, and different statistical models While the evidence-base is mixed, studies suggest that the weight of findings tends towards threat-responses as immigration increases (e.g., Ford 2011; Kaufmann and Goodwin 2018) Despite this range of approaches and volume of work, a key limitation of previous studies is that they have almost exclusively focused on these processes occurring in Western contexts, leading to a paucity of comparative perspectives between nonWestern and Western societies. Comparing these two distinctive contexts in immigration-histories and -environments, we test whether patterns of attitudinal-formation in response to immigration operate or differently
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