Asylum seekers feel more welcome in counties with more foreign-born residents

Abstract

European countries are struggling with the largest inflows of asylum seekers since World War II, with ongoing debates about how best to promote asylum seeker integration. This article presents evidence from Germany which suggests asylum seekers feel more welcome when living in counties with more foreign-born residents. This relationship is stronger when asylum seekers and foreign-born residents have similar origins. Among Syrian asylum seekers, larger percentages of co-national residents are especially important. These findings have numerous implications that broaden our understanding of asylum seeker integration and engage debates about how to design asylum seeker reception policies. This article also contributes to broader debates about the relationship between geographic context and social and political attitudes.

Keywords:

• Asylum seeker
• Germany
• Europe
• migrant integration
• contextual effects

Acknowledgements

Previous versions were presented at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the European University Institute, Aarhus University, the University of Copenhagen, the University of Sussex, the American Political Science Association annual conference, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of California, Berkeley, Sciences Po, Harvard University, University College London, the University of California San Diego, the University of Amsterdam, and New York University. The authors would like to thank participants at each venue for excellent feedback that improved the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Replication material

Replication materials for this article is available at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HZVI6I

Notes

1 Ukrainian asylum seekers were more likely than Syrians to leave Western Europe and return home after a few months. Even so, there was a large influx of Ukrainian asylum seekers in 2022, and at the time of writing, their integration prospects remain uncertain.

2 The underlying causal mechanism behind this relationship is an ongoing source of debate. Exposure to foreign-origin residents may make people who live in those communities more supportive of multiculturalism. However, people who support multiculturalism may select into communities with more foreign-origin residents.

3 See http://www.bamf.de for an overview. See German Asylum Act (09.02.2008, last amended 03.11.2016) for full law.

4 Respondents were able to choose from seven languages to conduct their interview, and translation was facilitated by a computer-assisted personal interviewing device (CAPI) – and a translation hot-line if necessary.

5 State fixed effects account for the federal structure of German government, including potential differences in reception and processing of asylum seekers across states. Year fixed effects account for any differences in asylum reception dynamics between 2016 and 2017.

6 After Syrians (N = 1946), Afghans (N = 446) are the second largest national-origin group in the sample. Some national-origin groups have fewer than ten respondents.

7 One possibility is that something specific to Syrian national culture creates dynamics that boost welcome. Another possibility is that recent Syrian asylum seekers face unique challenges that require the more intense dynamic of co-national residents.

8 The difference between the minimum and maximum share of people under 25 is associated with a 0.386 point increase in welcome. The difference between the minimum and maximum share of people over 65 years old is associated with a 0.407 point increase.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eroll Kuhn

Eroll Kuhn is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University. His research lies at the intersection of political behaviour and public policy, with a substantive focus on immigration. [[email protected]]

Rahsaan Maxwell

Rahsaan Maxwell is Professor in the Department of Politics at New York University. His research covers a wide range of issues related to migration and diversity, with a particular focus on Western Europe. [[email protected]]