Occupational Essentialness During COVID-19 and Attitudes Towards Labor Migration

Abstract

COVID-19 raised public appreciation of “essential” or “key” workers in high-income countries, many of whom are immigrants. Previous studies show native-born residents prefer highly-skilled immigrants for their perceived contributions to tax revenue and innovation. By contrast, we argue occupational essentialness—deriving from governments’ own classifications during the pandemic, and transcending conventional skill categories—is another dimension conditioning immigration attitudes that is driven by neither purely material nor cultural concerns. Using a pre-registered conjoint experiment fielded in the UK in January 2021, we find that respondents are 22 percentage points more likely to admit immigrants working in essential over non-essential occupations, and 10 percentage points more likely to view them as economically beneficial compared to those in non-essential occupations. A premium remained after distinguishing among skill levels, excluding health and personal care occupations, and seven months later as the immediate crisis lessened.