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European Attitudes toward Immigrant Employment

European Attitudes toward Immigrant Employment. Christopher Hayes ch0705a@student.american.edu American University School of International Service. Research Question and Hypothesis. Do Europeans feel immigrants are needed to work in and support the economy?

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European Attitudes toward Immigrant Employment

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  1. European Attitudes toward Immigrant Employment Christopher Hayes ch0705a@student.american.edu American University School of International Service

  2. Research Question and Hypothesis • Do Europeans feel immigrants are needed to work in and support the economy? • H0: There is not a statistically significant relationship between attitudes toward working immigrants and the independent variables • Ha: There is a statistically significant relationship between attitudes toward working immigrants and the independent variables

  3. Literature Review • Anastasia Gorodzeisky: Who are the Europeans that Europeans prefer? Economic conditions and exclusionary view toward European immigrants • Theory: Europeans inclination to include/exclude immigrants is based on the origin countries' level of economic development • Finding: Europeans from rich(poor) nations are more resistant to immigrants and other rich(poor) countries and receptive of immigrants from poorer(richer) countries. • Anna Maria Mayda: Who is against immigration? A cross-country investigation of individual attitudes toward immigrants • Theory: Attitudes toward foreigners may be driven by only non-economic factors • Finding: “Labor-market variables continue to play a key and robust role in preference formation over immigration policy”

  4. Data • The data comes from EC EU Eurobarometer 71.3 conducted June/July 2009 and provides individual level data from across Europe (including non-EU countries) • Dependent Variable: dependent (nominal)‏ • We need immigrants to work in certain sectors of our economy (Agree=0 or Disagree=1)‏ • Recoded to remove missing values and an alternate response option of “It depends” • Independent Variables: • X1 is Societal Level [SL] (Ordinal)- self-reported level within society from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) • X2 is Age [Age] (Interval Ratio)- age of the respondent by year from 15 to 98 • X3 is Gender [Gen] (Nominal)- Male (1), Female (2)‏ • X4 is Political Orientation [PO] (Ordinal)- recode of 10 point scale of self-reported political orientation with left (1), center (2), and right (3) • X5 is French [Fr] (Nominal) dummy variable to distinguish French nationality (French = 0)‏ • X6 is Italian [It] (Nominal) dummy variable to distinguish Italian nationality (Italian = 0)‏

  5. Descriptive Statistics • For the dependent variable the mode is 1= tend to not agree • SL: mean = 5.36 median = 5, slight positive skew • Age: mean = 47.42, median = 47, slight positive skew • Gen: mode = 2 (female)‏ • PO: median = 2 (center) • Fr: mode = 1 (not French)‏ • It: mode = 1 (not Italian)‏

  6. Bivariate Analysis

  7. Probit Results Y=0 means we do need immigrants to work in the economy Y=1 means we do not need immigrants to work in the economy All independent variables are significant at α=0.05 Model 1: Societal Level-as we increase SL by one unit, negative attitudes decrease by 4.53%. Age- as we increase age by one year, negative attitudes decrease .12% Model 2: SL-for a one unit increase negative attitudes decrease by 4.52%. Age- for a one unit increase negative attitudes decrease by .12%. Gen- As we change from male to female, negative attitudes increase by 2.01% Model 3: SL- for a one unit increase negative attitudes decrease by 4.85%. Age- for a one unit increase negative attitudes decrease by .15%. Gen-change from male to female increases negative attitudes by 2.29%. As Political Orientation increase by one unit negative attitudes increase by 4.67% Model 4: SL- decrease of 5.03%. Age- decrease of .15%. Gen- increase of 2.41%. PO-increase 4.49%. For French and Italian as we move from being members of these nationalities to not, negative attitudes increase by 21.69% and 13.19% respectively

  8. Policy Implications • Based on the results, young people and those at the lowest levels of society have the most negative attitudes toward immigrants working in the economy. • This may be caused by a fear that immigrants are taking jobs away from these groups, when they already have higher levels of unemployment compared to the rest of Europeans. • To help remedy this situation, programs should be put in place to create more jobs for these groups.

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