《国际政治经济学》文献资料（Political Economy of Migration）Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration

Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration Christian Dustmann and Ian P.Preston Abstract In this paper we distinguish between three channels that determine attitudes to further immi- gration:labour market concerns,welfare concerns,and racial or cultural concerns.Our analysis is based on the British Social Attitudes Survey.A unique feature of the survey is that it includes questions on attitudes towards immigration from different origin countries,with populations dif- fering in ethnic similarity to the resident population.It also contains sets of questions relating directly to the labour market,benefit expenditure and welfare concerns,and racial and cultural prejudice.Based on this unique data source,we specify and estimate a multiple factor model that allows comparison of the relative magnitude of association of attitudes to further immigration with the three channels,as well as comparison in responses across potential immigrant groups of different origin.Our results suggest that,overall,welfare concerns play a more important role in determination of attitudes to further immigration than labour market concerns,with their rela- tive magnitude differing across potential emigration regions and characteristics of the respondent. In addition,we find strong evidence that racial or cultural prejudice is an important component to attitudes towards immigration;however,this is restricted to immigration from countries with ethnically different populations. KEYWORDS:international migration,attitudes *Department of Economics and Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration(CReAM),Uni- versity College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies,London.email:c.dustmann@ucl.ac.uk; i.preston@ucl.ac.uk.We are grateful for comments and suggestions from Joseph Altonji,George Borjas,David Card,Edward Glaeser,Timothy Hatton,Hidehiko Ichimura,Zig Layton-Henry,Al- bert Satorra,Christoph M.Schmidt,Frank Windmeijer,and two anonymous referees.We thank the Nuffield Foundation for funding this research

Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration∗ Christian Dustmann and Ian P. Preston Abstract In this paper we distinguish between three channels that determine attitudes to further immi￾gration: labour market concerns, welfare concerns, and racial or cultural concerns. Our analysis is based on the British Social Attitudes Survey. A unique feature of the survey is that it includes questions on attitudes towards immigration from different origin countries, with populations dif￾fering in ethnic similarity to the resident population. It also contains sets of questions relating directly to the labour market, benefit expenditure and welfare concerns, and racial and cultural prejudice. Based on this unique data source, we specify and estimate a multiple factor model that allows comparison of the relative magnitude of association of attitudes to further immigration with the three channels, as well as comparison in responses across potential immigrant groups of different origin. Our results suggest that, overall, welfare concerns play a more important role in determination of attitudes to further immigration than labour market concerns, with their rela￾tive magnitude differing across potential emigration regions and characteristics of the respondent. In addition, we find strong evidence that racial or cultural prejudice is an important component to attitudes towards immigration; however, this is restricted to immigration from countries with ethnically different populations. KEYWORDS: international migration, attitudes ∗Department of Economics and Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Uni￾versity College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies, London. email: c.dustmann@ucl.ac.uk; i.preston@ucl.ac.uk. We are grateful for comments and suggestions from Joseph Altonji, George Borjas, David Card, Edward Glaeser, Timothy Hatton, Hidehiko Ichimura, Zig Layton-Henry, Al￾bert Satorra, Christoph M. Schmidt, Frank Windmeijer, and two anonymous referees. We thank the Nuffield Foundation for funding this research

Dustmann and Preston:Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration 1 Introduction The debate on immigration features highly on the political agenda both in Europe and in the US.The economic consequences of immigration for the native population,the perceived effects on cultural identity and social cohe- sion,and the strong feelings involved make immigration a topic which figures prominently in political campaigning.Regulations concerning immigration are frequently adjusted according to changes in the economic situation.Often however it is not the economic considerations alone,but shifts in general atti- tudes of the public towards immigration that lead to re-design of immigration policies.To understand what drives individual preferences over immigration policies is thus an important research area,both for descriptive political econ- omy and for policy design,and recently a literature has developed that analyses this. A prime concern often thought to influence the way preferences over further immigration are formed is the way in which individuals perceive the effects of immigration on the labour market.In an important paper on attitudes to- wards further immigration,Scheve and Slaughter(2001)suggest that the way individuals assess these effects may relate to basic intuitions about labour mar- ket equilibria.Simple models with a single output good and multiple labour types (see for example,Altonji and Card,1991)do point to a possibility for immigration to harm those workers who compete with immigrants.2 Scheve and Slaughter(2001)report a strong relationship between education and more favourable attitudes to further immigration,which is consistent with the hy- pothesis that the low skilled are opposed to immigration because of a fear of labour market competition.Mayda(2005),arguing within a similar theoretical setting and using cross-country data,finds evidence for a positive correlation between individual skill level and pro-immigration attitudes in countries where the relative skill ratio of natives to immigrants is high.Using cross-state varia- 1Other papers that analyse the determinants of individual preferences over immigration policies in several countries include Gang,Rivera-Batiz and Yun (2002),Mayda (2005), Fertig and Schmidt(2002),Bauer,Lofstrom and Zimmermann(2001),O'Rourke and Sinnott (2003).Hanson.Scheve and Slaughter (2004.2005)and Facchini and Mayda (2006).Aslund and Rooth(2005)study shifts in attitudes in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 2Empirical evidence establishing the existence of adverse effects is scarce (see Borjas 1999b,and Friedberg and Hunt 1995 for overviews),although there is an ongoing debate on the issue(see e.g.Card 2005 and Borjas 2003 for diverging views).Lewis(2003,2005) tests the hypothesis of two alternative adjustment mechanisms to immigration,adjustment through output mix(see the discussions in Leamer and Levinsohn 1995,and Gaston and Nelson 2000),and within-industry technology adjustment,and finds strong evidence for the latter. Published by The Berkeley Electronic Press,2007

1 Introduction The debate on immigration features highly on the political agenda both in Europe and in the US. The economic consequences of immigration for the native population, the perceived e§ects on cultural identity and social cohe￾sion, and the strong feelings involved make immigration a topic which Ögures prominently in political campaigning. Regulations concerning immigration are frequently adjusted according to changes in the economic situation. Often however it is not the economic considerations alone, but shifts in general atti￾tudes of the public towards immigration that lead to re-design of immigration policies. To understand what drives individual preferences over immigration policies is thus an important research area, both for descriptive political econ￾omy and for policy design, and recently a literature has developed that analyses this. A prime concern often thought to ináuence the way preferences over further immigration are formed is the way in which individuals perceive the e§ects of immigration on the labour market. In an important paper on attitudes to￾wards further immigration, Scheve and Slaughter (2001) suggest that the way individuals assess these e§ects may relate to basic intuitions about labour mar￾ket equilibria.1 Simple models with a single output good and multiple labour types (see for example, Altonji and Card, 1991) do point to a possibility for immigration to harm those workers who compete with immigrants.2 Scheve and Slaughter (2001) report a strong relationship between education and more favourable attitudes to further immigration, which is consistent with the hy￾pothesis that the low skilled are opposed to immigration because of a fear of labour market competition. Mayda (2005), arguing within a similar theoretical setting and using cross-country data, Önds evidence for a positive correlation between individual skill level and pro-immigration attitudes in countries where the relative skill ratio of natives to immigrants is high. Using cross-state varia- 1Other papers that analyse the determinants of individual preferences over immigration policies in several countries include Gang, Rivera-Batiz and Yun (2002), Mayda (2005), Fertig and Schmidt (2002), Bauer, Lofstrom and Zimmermann (2001), OíRourke and Sinnott (2003), Hanson, Scheve and Slaughter (2004, 2005) and Facchini and Mayda (2006). Aslund and Rooth (2005) study shifts in attitudes in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. 2Empirical evidence establishing the existence of adverse e§ects is scarce (see Borjas 1999b, and Friedberg and Hunt 1995 for overviews), although there is an ongoing debate on the issue (see e.g. Card 2005 and Borjas 2003 for diverging views). Lewis (2003, 2005) tests the hypothesis of two alternative adjustment mechanisms to immigration, adjustment through output mix (see the discussions in Leamer and Levinsohn 1995, and Gaston and Nelson 2000), and within-industry technology adjustment, and Önds strong evidence for the latter. 1 Dustmann and Preston: Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration Published by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2007

The B.E.Journal of Economic Analysis Policy,Vol.7 [2007],Iss.I (Advances),Art.62 tion for the US,Hanson,Scheve and Slaughter(2005)establish similar evidence and conclude that labour market pressures of immigration are an important determinant of public opinion on immigration restrictions. Labour market competition may,however,not be the only economic con- cern which forms preferences over immigration.According to Borjas (1999a. p.105),the second economic issue in the historical debate over immigration policy in the United States is whether immigrants pay their way in the welfare system.He argues that in the US,immigrants receive a disproportionately large share of the welfare benefits distributed.Borjas(1999a)draws attention to the possible impact of immigration on dependency ratios and the conse- quent effects on the cost of the benefit and social security systems.Since, under progressive taxation,any implied tax burden will bear more heavily on richer households,this provides a possible reason for greater concern among those with higher incomes. There is evidence that public opinion is guided by the view that more immi- grants are an additional burden on the welfare system.Simon(1989)provides a history of anecdotal evidence on public opinion towards further immigration, where both welfare considerations and labour market fears are the two major concerns.Dustmann and Preston (2005),investigating the determinants of the economic impact of immigration,find that welfare considerations are the largest single factor of concern,and more important than labour market con- cerns.3 Using cross-state variation in the US,Hanson,Scheve and Slaughter present evidence that exposure to immigrant fiscal pressure reduces support for immigration in particular among the more skilled.Facchini and Mayda (2006)study welfare-state determinants of individual attitudes towards immi- grants.Based on cross-country data,they report attitudinal responses which they argue make sense in the context of a redistributive fiscal system. In addition to these two economic determinants,there are also non-economic channels through which preferences over further immigration may be shaped. Opposition to immigration may be motivated by reasons which relate to the cultural and ethnic difference of the immigrant population.Opposition may be fueled by a fear of loss of national characteristics and identity,or a taste for cultural homogeneity.Cultural and ethnic distance may severely hinder the social integration process,and this may be considered to induce social ten- sions and costs.There is ample evidence that deeply rooted hostility exists towards immigration groups with largely different cultural and ethnic back- 3Dustmann and Preston's analysis focusses on responses to a question about the economic consequences of immigration.not on whether immigration regulations should be tightened. as do most of the other papers cited. http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol7/iss1/art62 2

tion for the US, Hanson, Scheve and Slaughter (2005) establish similar evidence and conclude that labour market pressures of immigration are an important determinant of public opinion on immigration restrictions. Labour market competition may, however, not be the only economic con￾cern which forms preferences over immigration. According to Borjas (1999a, p.105), the second economic issue in the historical debate over immigration policy in the United States is whether immigrants pay their way in the welfare system. He argues that in the US, immigrants receive a disproportionately large share of the welfare beneÖts distributed. Borjas (1999a) draws attention to the possible impact of immigration on dependency ratios and the conse￾quent e§ects on the cost of the beneÖt and social security systems. Since, under progressive taxation, any implied tax burden will bear more heavily on richer households, this provides a possible reason for greater concern among those with higher incomes. There is evidence that public opinion is guided by the view that more immi￾grants are an additional burden on the welfare system. Simon (1989) provides a history of anecdotal evidence on public opinion towards further immigration, where both welfare considerations and labour market fears are the two major concerns. Dustmann and Preston (2005), investigating the determinants of the economic impact of immigration, Önd that welfare considerations are the largest single factor of concern, and more important than labour market con￾cerns.3 Using cross-state variation in the US, Hanson, Scheve and Slaughter present evidence that exposure to immigrant Öscal pressure reduces support for immigration in particular among the more skilled. Facchini and Mayda (2006) study welfare-state determinants of individual attitudes towards immi￾grants. Based on cross-country data, they report attitudinal responses which they argue make sense in the context of a redistributive Öscal system. In addition to these two economic determinants, there are also non-economic channels through which preferences over further immigration may be shaped. Opposition to immigration may be motivated by reasons which relate to the cultural and ethnic di§erence of the immigrant population. Opposition may be fueled by a fear of loss of national characteristics and identity, or a taste for cultural homogeneity. Cultural and ethnic distance may severely hinder the social integration process, and this may be considered to induce social ten￾sions and costs. There is ample evidence that deeply rooted hostility exists towards immigration groups with largely di§erent cultural and ethnic back- 3Dustmann and Prestonís analysis focusses on responses to a question about the economic consequences of immigration, not on whether immigration regulations should be tightened, as do most of the other papers cited. 2 The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, Vol. 7 [2007], Iss. 1 (Advances), Art. 62 http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol7/iss1/art62

Dustmann and Preston:Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration grounds.This hostility manifests itself in remarks of politicians and opinion leaders.For instance,the then opposition leader and future British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher referred in a famous 1978 television interview to a British fear of being "rather swamped by people with a different culture" (Layton-Henry,1992,p.184).Some of the aforementioned papers present ev- idence that attitudinal questions regarding concern about identity or crime (Mayda,2005)or ideology (Scheve and Slaughter 2001)are indeed associated with preferences for tighter immigration regulation. In this paper,we contribute to the literature on attitude formation by analysing the importance of welfare concerns as well as racial and cultural prej- udice,alongside labour market concerns,as three key aspects that determine preferences about immigration.Our methodological approach is to explicitly model these three channels through which immigration attitudes may be af- fected.We do this by formulating and estimating a multiple factor model. The basic idea of our methodology is to use sets of multiple questions address- ing each of the three dimensions of concern (the labour market,welfare,and cultural or racial prejudice)and the correlations among responses to identify common underlying components.We then infer the importance of these in explaining variation in attitudes to immigration. The problem with basing conclusions on interpretation of the association between individual characteristics and immigration attitudes within a labour market model or/and a welfare model is that the most important character- istics are associated with attitudes to immigration through different channels. so that the separation of their roles is difficult.For example,the fact that the highly educated are more liberal in their attitudes may reflect that their labour market position is less vulnerable to immigration of the typically ex- pected skill composition.However,it could also reflect the strong association of education with attitudes to welfare or to culture.In this paper we explic- itly model the channels through which these may impact on attitudes about immigration regulation.An important research question which we address is then the relative contributions of these alternative explanations in explaining shifts in general attitudes of the public towards immigration,and how indi- vidual characteristics work through these channels.A further contribution of our analysis is to separate the role of the three channels in driving attitudes regarding clearly distinguishable immigrant groups.The data on which our analysis is based (various waves of the British Social Attitudes Survey,BSA) allows us to do so,as it is unusual in distinguishing explicitly between atti- tudes to immigration from different regions of origin.Our data also contains extremely specific geographical information on respondents,which allows us to merge in objective environmental information at a very precise spatial level Published by The Berkeley Electronic Press,2007 3

grounds. This hostility manifests itself in remarks of politicians and opinion leaders. For instance, the then opposition leader and future British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher referred in a famous 1978 television interview to a British fear of being ìrather swamped by people with a di§erent cultureî (Layton-Henry, 1992, p.184). Some of the aforementioned papers present ev￾idence that attitudinal questions regarding concern about identity or crime (Mayda, 2005) or ideology (Scheve and Slaughter 2001) are indeed associated with preferences for tighter immigration regulation. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on attitude formation by analysing the importance of welfare concerns as well as racial and cultural prej￾udice, alongside labour market concerns, as three key aspects that determine preferences about immigration. Our methodological approach is to explicitly model these three channels through which immigration attitudes may be af￾fected. We do this by formulating and estimating a multiple factor model. The basic idea of our methodology is to use sets of multiple questions address￾ing each of the three dimensions of concern (the labour market, welfare, and cultural or racial prejudice) and the correlations among responses to identify common underlying components. We then infer the importance of these in explaining variation in attitudes to immigration. The problem with basing conclusions on interpretation of the association between individual characteristics and immigration attitudes within a labour market model or/and a welfare model is that the most important character￾istics are associated with attitudes to immigration through di§erent channels, so that the separation of their roles is di¢ cult. For example, the fact that the highly educated are more liberal in their attitudes may reáect that their labour market position is less vulnerable to immigration of the typically ex￾pected skill composition. However, it could also reáect the strong association of education with attitudes to welfare or to culture. In this paper we explic￾itly model the channels through which these may impact on attitudes about immigration regulation. An important research question which we address is then the relative contributions of these alternative explanations in explaining shifts in general attitudes of the public towards immigration, and how indi￾vidual characteristics work through these channels. A further contribution of our analysis is to separate the role of the three channels in driving attitudes regarding clearly distinguishable immigrant groups. The data on which our analysis is based (various waves of the British Social Attitudes Survey, BSA) allows us to do so, as it is unusual in distinguishing explicitly between atti￾tudes to immigration from di§erent regions of origin. Our data also contains extremely speciÖc geographical information on respondents, which allows us to merge in objective environmental information at a very precise spatial level 3 Dustmann and Preston: Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration Published by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2007

The B.E.Journal of Economic Analysis Policy,Vol.7 [2007],Iss.I (Advances),Art.62 on local unemployment and ethnic composition. We allow responses of the native population to differ along various di- mensions.We distinguish between different occupation groups (separating manual and non-manual workers),and different education groups(separating low,medium and high education groups).This allows us to directly investi- gate the association of cultural and racial prejudice,labour market concerns, and welfare concerns with preferences towards more immigration across dif- ferent skill levels.We therefore use a more direct approach than Scheve and Slaughter(2001)in assessing whether the differences in relative preferences to- wards further immigration across skill groups are compatible with predictions of equilibrium trade and labour market models.Furthermore,the distinction made in our data between immigrants of different ethnic and cultural back- grounds,allows us to assess the relative association of each of these factors with preferences towards further immigration for different skill groups,and across immigrant populations of different ethnic and cultural dissimilarity. Our findings are interesting and novel in several respects.First,our descrip- tive evidence shows that opposition towards further immigration is strongly related to the proposed origin of immigrants,with much larger resistance the more ethnically distinct the immigrant population is.Second,we establish that welfare concerns are generally a more important driver of attitudes than labour market concerns,in particular towards groups with a high welfare de- pendence.These views are strongest among respondents who are likely to be the biggest contributors if immigration,as sometimes suggested by those most hostile,induces a tax-financed increase in welfare dependency.Our analysis also shows that racial/cultural prejudice is an important underlying channel through which overall attitudes are driven,in particular for the low skilled. The structure of the paper is as follows.Section 2 outlines our econometric model,and explains estimation and identification of the parameters.Section 3 provides a brief overview of migration to the UK,documents skills and occu- pational achievements of immigrants,and discusses the data we use.Section 4 provides some descriptive evidence.Section 5 presents and discusses results, and section 6 concludes. http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol7/iss1/art62

on local unemployment and ethnic composition. We allow responses of the native population to di§er along various di￾mensions. We distinguish between di§erent occupation groups (separating manual and non-manual workers), and di§erent education groups (separating low, medium and high education groups). This allows us to directly investi￾gate the association of cultural and racial prejudice, labour market concerns, and welfare concerns with preferences towards more immigration across dif￾ferent skill levels. We therefore use a more direct approach than Scheve and Slaughter (2001) in assessing whether the di§erences in relative preferences to￾wards further immigration across skill groups are compatible with predictions of equilibrium trade and labour market models. Furthermore, the distinction made in our data between immigrants of di§erent ethnic and cultural back￾grounds, allows us to assess the relative association of each of these factors with preferences towards further immigration for di§erent skill groups, and across immigrant populations of di§erent ethnic and cultural dissimilarity. Our Öndings are interesting and novel in several respects. First, our descrip￾tive evidence shows that opposition towards further immigration is strongly related to the proposed origin of immigrants, with much larger resistance the more ethnically distinct the immigrant population is. Second, we establish that welfare concerns are generally a more important driver of attitudes than labour market concerns, in particular towards groups with a high welfare de￾pendence. These views are strongest among respondents who are likely to be the biggest contributors if immigration, as sometimes suggested by those most hostile, induces a tax-Önanced increase in welfare dependency. Our analysis also shows that racial/cultural prejudice is an important underlying channel through which overall attitudes are driven, in particular for the low skilled. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 outlines our econometric model, and explains estimation and identiÖcation of the parameters. Section 3 provides a brief overview of migration to the UK, documents skills and occu￾pational achievements of immigrants, and discusses the data we use. Section 4 provides some descriptive evidence. Section 5 presents and discusses results, and section 6 concludes. 4 The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, Vol. 7 [2007], Iss. 1 (Advances), Art. 62 http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol7/iss1/art62