Moshe Semyonov

In the present research ‘factorial survey experiment’ method is applied to examine and compare the differential impact of immigrants’ characteristics on anti-immigrant sentiment among the majority and minority populations in Israel. Potential immigrants were described by six characteristics (gender, continent of birth, education, religion, level of religiosity and reason for migration) in a fractionalised sample of 252 vignettes (organised in 42 decks of 6 vignettes each). They were presented to two national representative samples of the Jewish (majority) and of the Arab (minority) populations in Israel. Respondents were asked to express attitudes toward admission and allocation of rights to hypothetical immigrants. The analysis reveals that Arabs are more supportive of immigrants than Jews, and that the most influential characteristic on formation of attitudes is immigrants’ religious origin, with Jews preferring Jewish immigrants but objecting non-Jews (especially Muslims) and Arabs favouring non-Jews (especially Muslims) immigrants. Discussion of the findings in light of theory leads to the conclusion that sentiments toward immigrants are shaped, first and foremost, by preferences regarding the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of society; much more than by threat of economic competition.

Despite the steady increase in the number of women who join the labor force, there are still substantial cross-country variations in both women’s labor force participation and gender-linked occupational inequality. Utilizing micro-data from 47 countries (circa 2013) obtained from the Luxembourg Income Study, we examine the extent to which globalization and each of its three components (economic, social and political) affect gender-based economic inequality. In particular, we investigate the effect of globalization on two outcomes: women’s labor force participation and women’s relative odds of obtaining high-income, high-status jobs. The findings show, first, that social globalization is more consequential for gender inequality in the labor market than either economic or political globalization. Second, while social globalization increases women’s labor force participation, it reduces women’s relative odds of obtaining lucrative, high-status jobs. The findings are discussed in light of the comparative literature on gender-based inequality.

The paper focuses on economic disadvantage (loss) or economic advantage (gain) among first‐ and second‐generation immigrants in Switzerland in comparison to the Swiss majority group. We distinguish between economic and noneconomic (political, family reunion, and educational pursuit) immigrants. Utilising data from the 2007 Swiss Health Survey, we found that economic immigrant males are able to attain higher income than the comparable majority group already in the first generation, whereas female economic immigrants manage to do so only in the second generation. Educational male immigrants are doing almost as well in Switzerland as male economic immigrants. In the second generation, female noneconomic immigrants are economically better integrated than their male counterparts when compared to a similar Swiss majority group. Female immigrants are able to close the pay gap with the Swiss majority group. The meaning and implications of the findings are discussed in light of immigration theory in general and the Swiss immigration policy in particular.

In Search of the Healthy Immigrant Effect in Four West European Countries

The present paper advances the proposition that level of opposition to immigration (i.e. endorsement of closure or exclusion) and its sources are not uniform and vary across immigrant groups. To test this proposition we utilize data from the 2014 European Social Survey for 20 countries and apply the analysis to the following groups: immigrants of same race/ethnic group as a majority population, immigrants of different race/ethnic group, Muslim, Jews and Roma immigrants. The analysis reveals that level of opposition to immigration of different ethno-religious groups in Europe is hierarchical, being most extreme toward Muslims and Roma and quite minor toward people of the same ethnic/race groups as well as toward Jews. Further analysis reveals that not only the level of opposition varies across groups but also the sources that drive such opposition. In general, the sources of opposition to immigration can be divided to two major categories: universal sources and group-specific sources. The universal sources (sources which increase opposition toward all immigrants regardless of their origin) pertain to threat of competition over socio-economic and symbolic resources. The group-specific sources consist of racism, fear of crime and inter-group contact. Racism and lack of inter-group contact tend to increase opposition that is exclusive to Muslim and to Roma immigrants. Racism, however, does not increase opposition that is exclusive to immigrants belonging to a race/ethnicity, which is different from most country people. Fear of crime is likely to prompt opposition that is exclusive to immigrants of different race/ethnic group and to Roma but not toward Muslims. The findings underscore the multiple sources underlying emergence of anti-immigrant sentiment, in general, and opposition to specific groups of immigrants, in particular.

The current study examines the following questions: (1) the extent to which individual basic human values are linked with attitudes towards immigration; (2) whether symbolic threat by immigration mediates this relation; and (3) whether cultural values moderate the relations between individual values, threat, and attitudes towards immigration. The empirical analysis relies on the 2014/2015 data from the immigration module of the European Social Survey (ESS) for West and East European countries. We find that universalistic individuals expressed lower threat due to immigration and higher support of immigration while conservative individuals displayed the opposite pattern. Symbolic threat mediated the association between values and immigration attitudes, but in most countries the mediation was partial. The associations between values, symbolic threat, and attitudes towards immigration were stronger in countries characterised by higher levels of intellectual and affective autonomy and weaker in countries characterised by higher levels of cultural embeddedness. The findings provide support for the centrality of human values in the formation of threat and attitudes towards immigration.

The present paper contributes to the literature on the formation of attitudes and public views toward out-group populations by focusing on the relations between actual versus perceived and misperceived size of immigrant population (as indicators of competitive threat) and attitudes toward immigration. The analysis is conducted in the context of 17 European societies. The data for the analysis were obtained from the 2014 European Social Survey (ESS). The main findings lead to the conclusion that misperceptions of the size of immigrant population play a more important role than factual reality in shaping public views and attitudes toward immigration. Although perceived size is not totally detached from actual size, the discrepancy between actual and perceived size is found to be a more powerful predictor of opposition to immigration than actual size. The more inflated is the misperception the more pronounced is opposition to immigration. The impact of misperceptions, when measured as a discrepancy or a ratio, on anti-immigrant attitudes is more pronounced in countries with, proportionally, a large foreign-born population. The meaning of the findings and the relevance of misperceptions and cognitive maps in shaping public views are discussed.