The impact of the financial crisis on European attitudes toward immigration

Joachim Vogt Isaksen

doi:10.1186/s40878-019-0127-5

Joachim Vogt Isaksen

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-019-0127-5

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Abstract

This paper studies changes in attitudes toward immigration over a 10-year period, with an examination of the long-term effects of economic downturn.The focus is on changes before and after the financial crisis. I use data from the European Social Survey (2002–2014), combined with economic indicators at the country level. This intends to observe links between economic performance and attitudes with a comparative analysis of data from 25 European countries. Overall, European public appear to become less positive toward immigration during economic crisis, although there are notable variations among the countries. The results show more pessimistic attitudes toward the immigrations’ contribution to the economy, especially in countries where the crisis had the most severe economic impact. Overall, the findings suggest that a downward economic spiral correlates with more negative attitudes towards immigration.

Highlights

An increase in migration in most EU countries has taken place in recent decades
This paper has examined European trends in attitudes toward immigration, and the the extent to which variations are associated with economic circumstances and concerns
The pattern is clear: the descriptive data indicates that scapegoating and feelings of group threat toward immigration may take place if they coincide with an economic downturn

Summary

Introduction

An increase in migration in most EU countries has taken place in recent decades. Simultaneously many European countries have experienced periods of economic instability. The second least affected countries Category 2 contains of countries in the data with the second best economic performance All of these countries experienced negative impact on development measured by the macroeconomic indicators, there are still some variations (World Bank, 2017a, b, c). Despite that UK had a decrease in GDP between 2007 and 2009, and an increase in the unemployment level (from 5.20 to 7.70%), immigration attitudes were quite stable in the same period These results are in line with Turner and Cross’s (2015) study which compares European attitudes before and after the crisis (2002 and 2010). The most prevalent finding in this group is the link between an increase in unemployment in Ireland and Czech Republic, and more skepticism toward immigration (Fig. 4) Affected countries This category contains of countries where the crisis had a severe impact. Jobbik is known to be in opposition to refugees, and one could argue that this does not necessarily lead to overall skepticism toward labor immigration from neighboring countries (Fig. 6)

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion