Explaining Attitudes Towards Immigration Policies in European Countries: The Role of Human Values

Abstract

European societies have been experiencing increasing rates of immigration in recent decades. At the same time one can observe a substantial rise in anti-foreigner sentiments. In this study we investigate the effect of human values on attitudes towards immigration. We hypothesise that self-transcendent individuals are more supportive of, and conservative individuals are more adverse to, immigration. We do not expect large differences in the effect of values across contexts. To explain cross-country and cross-time differences we use group threat theory, according to which larger inflows of immigration combined with challenging economic conditions impose a threat on the host society, resulting in more negative attitudes towards immigration. To test our hypotheses we use data from the first three rounds of the European Social Survey (2002–03, 2004–05 and 2006–07) and multilevel analysis. Prior to the interpretation of the results, we guarantee that the concepts display measurement invariance across countries and over time. Our results largely confirm our hypotheses regarding the role that values play in the explanation of anti-immigration attitudes.

Keywords:

• Human Values
• Self-Transcendence and Conservation
• Group Threat Theory
• European Social Survey
• Attitudes Towards Immigration

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Lisa Trierweiler for proofing the English of the manuscript, and also the two anonyous JEMS reviewers for helpful comments.

Notes

1. See website: http://www.oecd.org/home.

2. The data for the analysis were taken from the website http://ess.nsd.uib.no. Details on data collection techniques in each country are documented on the website http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org. The figures refer to the number of respondents without missing values on the variables included in the models.

3. See Note 2, above, and the ESS website, for the precise item formulations.

4. We would like to thank an anonymous JEMS reviewer for this suggestion.

5. A figure displaying the distribution of the reject variable may be available from the authors upon request.

6. Without controlling for value orientations, the fact that women tend to give higher priority to self-transcendence values masks this gender effect.