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Begin New Search Topic Immigration Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 5 Years Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Understanding differences in attitudes to immigration: a meta-analysis of individual-level factors

Author:
Lenka Dražanová, Jérôme Gonnot, Tobias Heidland, and Ralf Krüger
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Public attitudes toward immigration have attracted much scholarly interest and extensive empirical research in recent years. Despite a sizeable theoretical and empirical literature, no firm conclusions have been drawn regarding the factors affecting immigration opinion. We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis derived from the literature regarding immigration attitudes from the top journals of several social science disciplines in the years 2009-2019 and based on a population of 1185 estimates derived from 144 unique analyses on individual-level factors affecting attitudes to immigration. The meta-analytical findings show that two individual-level characteristics are most significantly associated with attitudes to immigration - education (positively) and age (negatively). Our results further reveal that the same individual characteristics do not necessarily explain immigration policy attitudes and attitudes towards immigrants' contribution. The findings challenge several conventional micro-level theories of attitudes to immigration. The meta-analysis can inform future research when planning the set of explanatory variables to avoid omitting key determinants.
Topic:
Globalization, Migration, Immigration, Public Opinion, and Attitudes
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. How Do Immigrants Promote Exports?

Author:
Gianluca Orefice, Hillel Rapoport, and Gianluca Santoni
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:
How does immigration affect export performance? To answer this question, we propose a unified empirical framework allowing to disentangle various mechanisms put forth in previous literature. These include the role of networks in reducing bilateral transaction costs as well as productivity shifts arising from migration-induced knowledge diffusion and increased workforce diversity. While we find evidence supporting all three channels (at both the intensive and the extensive margins of trade), our framework allows to gauge their relative importance. We then focus on diversity and find stronger results in sectors characterized by more complex production processes and more intense teamwork cooperation. This is consistent with theories linking the distribution of skills to the comparative advantage of nations. The results are robust to using a theoretically grounded IV approach combining three variations on the shift share methodology.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Immigration, Immigrants, Diversity, and Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. A Comprehensive Framework for Studying Migration Policies (and a Call to Observe Them beyond Immigration to the West)

Author:
Luicy Pedroza
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This piece is both an exercise in critical conceptual landscaping in the field of Migration Studies and the proposal of an analytical framework that can correct some of its most serious biases. The framework I propose allows the observing of migration policies as if they constituted a comprehensive policy field. This will permit comparisons across the whole spectrum of migration policies on a rigorous basis, and for all countries and regions. I identify two constitutive sides to the proposed framework, each dealing with how state‐like polities regulate the mobility of incoming or outgoing persons. I further suggest that it include regulations on the rights of individuals to pass through three stages of any international migration journey: the right to enter/exit; the rights as immigrant residents/emigrant non‐residents; and, the rights to citizenship and nationality. This comprehensive framework for studying migration policy promises advances for empirical agendas, but also for connecting them to normative ones rooted in global justice and democratic concerns.
Topic:
Human Rights, Migration, Immigration, and Justice
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Diversity and perceptions of Immigration: How the past Influences the present

Author:
Lauren McLaren, Anja Neundorf, and Ian Paterson
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
Research on the relationship between immigration-related diversity and public attitudes to immigration generally focuses on contemporary levels of (or recent changes in) diversity. Drawing on the political socialization literature, this paper argues that by ignoring the effect of diversity during early socialization years, existing research fails to fully understand longterm trends in attitudes to immigration. Applying a generational change perspective to the British sample of the European Social Survey (2002-2017), along with two innovative approaches to modeling generational differences - generalized additive models (GAMs) and hierarchical age‒period‒cohort (HAPC) models - we are able to investigate attitudes among groups of birth cohorts socialized between 1935 and 2010. The findings show that younger cohorts are systematically more positive about immigration. These increasingly positive attitudes are related to a macro-context of higher diversity in younger cohorts’ early years. This effect may, however, be diminished by a context of high income inequality during the formative years.
Topic:
Immigration, Diversity, Social Order, and Models
Political Geography:
Britain and Global Focus

5. Out of the Shadows: Shining a Light on Irregular Migration

Author:
Erol Yayboke and Carmen Garcia Gallego
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Millions of people around the world live in and travel through the shadows. Compelled to leave home, they migrate irregularly without proper documentation to gain access to jobs, education, healthcare, food, and other essential services. Irregular migration exists because there are not enough opportunities for safety and prosperity at home and too few conventional means through which to remedy that lack of opportunity. Recognizing the critical, understudied, and often misunderstood nature of this global phenomenon, CSIS produced a research study on irregular migration involving field research in Mexico, Eritrea, and Ghana. This report, which builds on CSIS’ past work on the global forced migration crisis, aims to shine a light on irregular migration and contribute to an enormously consequential conversation.
Topic:
Migration, Immigration, Borders, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus