The Impact of Economic and Cultural Cues on Support for Immigration in Canada and the United States

Abstract

Abstract. Past research suggests that citizens' attitudes toward immigration are driven by perceptions of immigrants' (a) economic status and (b) ethnicity. In this study, we use an online survey conducted with a representative sample of Canadians to test to what extent economic and cultural cues influence support for individual immigrants. In particular, by drawing on a parallel US survey, we explore whether Canadians' relatively unique (positive) attitudes toward immigration make them more immune to economic and cultural threat manipulations than their American counterparts. The analysis is based on an experimental design embedded in a series of immigrant vignettes that vary the ethnoracial background and social status of an individual applying for immigration. We examine overall support for immigration, as well as the extent to which both ethnic and economic status cues affect support for individual immigrants. We also explore variance within Canada, specifically, in Quebec versus the rest of the country. Results offer new and unique information on the structure of attitudes on diversity and immigration in Canada. Most importantly, they suggest the relative importance of economic cues in support for immigration in both countries.Résumé. Divers travaux de recherche ont suggéré que les attitudes des citoyens au sujet de l'immigration sont influencées par leur perception (a) du statut économique et (b) de l'ethnie des immigrants. Afin de tenter de savoir jusqu'à quel point les informations socioéconomiques et culturelles ont effectivement un impact sur le soutien des citoyens envers les immigrants, la présente étude fait usage d'un sondage mené en ligne avec un échantillon représentatif de la population canadienne. En nous appuyant sur un sondage américain similaire, nous cherchons plus précisément à savoir si l'attitude (positive) relativement unique des Canadiens vis-à-vis de l'immigration les rend moins susceptibles d'être manipulés par l'évocation de menaces économiques et culturelles que leurs voisins américains. Notre analyse se fonde sur une expérience utilisant une série de vignettes qui modifient les caractéristiques ethnoraciales ainsi que le statut social d'un individu procédant à une demande d'immigration. Nous examinons non seulement le soutien pour l'immigration en général, mais aussi la mesure dans laquelle les informations relatives à l'ethnie et au statut économique d'un immigrant affectent le soutien que les citoyens lui offrent. Nous étudions aussi la variance à l'intérieur du Canada, plus spécifiquement entre le Québec et le reste du pays. Les résultats ainsi obtenus fournissent de l'information nouvelle et unique ayant trait à la structure des attitudes par rapport à la diversité et l'immigration au Canada. De surcroît, ces résultats suggèrent le rôle relativement important que jouent les informations d'ordre socioéconomique dans le soutien de l'immigration tant aux États-Unis qu'au Canada.

Nativism or Economic Threat: Attitudes Toward Immigrants During the Great Recession

“…Most scholarship starts from the view that, from a labor market perspective, respondents should hold similar views about trade and immigration. As Samuelson (1948) Citrin et al (1997), Hanson, Scheve and Slaughter (2007) and Harell et al (2012) but see Tingley (2012)). Immigrants use the social welfare system; traded goods do not and further, at least in the case of the US, even when trade policy leads to lay-offs, these layoffs have a far smaller fiscal effect, being constrained by trade adjustment assistance legislation.…”

“…(See Margalit (2011) andHarell et al (2012)). For some, immigration increases the threat of changes to the national culture and/or competition over scarce resources.…”

Political attitudes in a rapidly changing European landscape: methodological and substantive insights from the ESS-Netherlands panel component

“…Although an extensive amount of previous research has explored the role of economic and cultural threat perceptions in shaping anti-immigrant sentiments towards various immigrant groups, only a handful of studies examine the role of economic and cultural threats as cues for evaluating individual immigrants (Aalberg, Iyengar, & Messing, 2012;Harell, Soroka, Iyengar, & Valentino, 2012;Iyengar et al, 2013), and to our knowledge no previous research examined the impact of individual characteristics of immigrants on immigration-related attitudes in the Netherlands. Addressing this gap, the current study expands the scope of previous studies on attitudes towards individual immigrants to the previously unexplored Dutch case, and examines the role of economic and cultural characteristics of individual immigrants in shaping evaluations of individual immigrants in the Netherlands and in the USA.…”

“…Building on recent studies adopting a novel experimental design, the current study examines the impact of economic and cultural characteristics of potential immigrants on anti-immigrant sentiments in the USA and in the Netherlands. Although previous studies have well established how immigrant characteristics are affecting the level of support for immigrants in the USA and various Western democracies (Aalberg, Iyengar, & Messing, 2012;Harell, Soroka, Iyengar, & Valentino, 2012;Iyengar et al, 2013), to the best of our knowledge, no previous research has explored the role of individuating cues in the Netherlands. In the current study, we investigate the extent to which individuating cues affect public support for immigrants in the USA and the Netherlands from a comparative perspective.…”

“…In the USA, where immigration from south of the border has triggered concerns over economic and cultural threats posed by low-skilled and Spanish-speaking immigrants, the immigration debate has taken a new turn after the 9/11 terrorist attacks (Harell, Soroka, Iyengar, & Valentino, 2012). Recent studies provide evidence that terrorist attacks elicited support for tighter restrictions on civil liberties of immigrants (Davis & Silver, 2004;Huddy, Feldman, Taber, & Lahav, 2005).…”