Open AccessToo many immigrants: How does local diversity contribute to attitudes toward immigration?
Author(s) -
Juta Kawalerowicz
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
acta sociologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1502-3869
pISSN - 0001-6993
DOI - 10.1177/0001699320977592
Subject(s) - immigration , diversity (politics) , ethnic group , context (archaeology) , demographic economics , census , cultural diversity , salient , affect (linguistics) , perception , social psychology , sociology , political science , geography , psychology , demography , economics , law , population , archaeology , communication , neuroscience
This paper investigates the link between residential context, perceptions and attitudes toward immigrants by linking data from the British Election Study with Census statistics on composition of electoral constituencies in 2001 and 2011. I consider which type of local diversity is most salient for natives’ attitudes by combining information on ethnicity, religion and skills. Second, I look at whether base levels of and changes in local diversity affect anti-immigration attitudes in the same way. I find that immigration is more salient when defined by ethnic criteria, rather than criteria that combine ethnicity and religion or skills. Anti-immigrant attitudes are more likely to be expressed by natives who live in constituencies where there has been a large change in diversity between 2001 and 2011, but these responses depend on initial diversity levels. For non-whites and skilled ethnic minorities higher residential segregation is associated with more negative attitudes toward immigrants among natives.