Economic Vulnerability and Anti‐Immigrant Attitudes: Isolated Anomaly or Emerging Trend

Abstract

ObjectiveDonald Trump's sustained emphasis on the negative impact of immigration policies for personal economic conditions necessitates reevaluating the influence of the latter on the former. We assess the interaction between income and individual economic anxiety on immigration attitudes.MethodsMultivariate analysis of the 2012 and 2016 American National Election Study survey data.ResultsAfter controlling for conventional explanations and standard political covariates, those who share an income bracket with foreign‐born workers and also expressed individual economic anxiety were significantly more likely to express negative attitudes toward immigrants in 2016, but not in 2012.ConclusionThe discrepancy between the results in 2016 and 2012 is partially attributed to the different rhetorical approaches toward immigration policy adopted by Donald Trump and Mitt Romney. Whether the 2016 results represent an isolated anomaly or emerging trend may depend on the rhetorical choices of future presidential candidates.

Ethnonationalism and White immigration attitudes

“…The magnitude of this relationship is also substantial, with the size of the standardized coefficient for ethnonationalism being larger than that of ethnocentrism and White consciousness. It is also noteworthy how ethnonationalism exhibits a larger effect size than other variables that are similarly known to be associated with anti‐immigrant attitudes among Whites, including negative economic evaluations (Hickel & Bredbenner, 2020; Miller, 2020), authoritarian attitudes (Craig & Richeson, 2014) and Republican partisanship (Hajnal & Rivera, 2014). The negative and significant coefficient for age ( p < .01) is particularly surprising; however, scholarship consistent with the “competitive threat” model suggests that younger individuals face greater competition with immigrants in the labour market (Gorodzeisky & Semyonov, 2018), potentially accounting for the direction of the age coefficient.…”

“…These findings contribute to our existing understanding of White opposition to immigration in a number of important ways. First, much of the previous work on White opposition to immigration focuses on the effects of factors such as ethnocentrism (Kinder & Kam, 2010), White consciousness (Jardina, 2019), negative economic evaluations (Hickel & Bredbenner, 2020; Miller, 2020) and authoritarian attitudes (Craig & Richeson, 2014) but ignores the influence of individuals' concerns with the robustness of America's national identity altogether. Moreover, the few studies that have explored whether ethnonationalist beliefs are predictive of anti‐immigrant attitudes have only explored the effects of one component at a time (Schildkraut, 2005; Wong, 2010).…”

“…Additional explanatory variables include a number of measures that are known to be associated with White attitudes towards immigration, negative economic evaluations (Hickel & Bredbenner, 2020; Miller, 2020), Christian nationalism (Baker et al, 2020) and authoritarianism (Brandt & Reyna, 2014; Hetherington & Suhay, 2011). 11 Negative personal economic evaluations are measured using a 5‐point ordinal item that asks how worried a respondent is about their own financial situation, with possible responses ranging between 1 = extremely worried and 5 = not at all worried 12 .…”

Social Conflict and Outgroup Sentiment in South Korea: Evidence from the Yemeni Anti-Refugee Campaign

“…While more privileged members of society are typically better protected, the low-status, or relatively deprived, segments must bear the brunt of them. All things equal, people who belong to lower socioeconomic strata thus are more likely to display hostility toward liberal immigration policy (Hickel and Bredbenner 2022). Taken together, then, it is conjectured that incorporating cosmopolitan self-identity and subjective socioeconomic status as moderators may yield heterogeneous treatment effects.…”