The impact of the financial crisis on European attitudes toward immigration

Abstract

This paper studies changes in attitudes toward immigration over a 10-year period, with an examination of the long-term effects of economic downturn.The focus is on changes before and after the financial crisis. I use data from the European Social Survey (2002–2014), combined with economic indicators at the country level. This intends to observe links between economic performance and attitudes with a comparative analysis of data from 25 European countries. Overall, European public appear to become less positive toward immigration during economic crisis, although there are notable variations among the countries. The results show more pessimistic attitudes toward the immigrations’ contribution to the economy, especially in countries where the crisis had the most severe economic impact. Overall, the findings suggest that a downward economic spiral correlates with more negative attitudes towards immigration.