Does the education level of refugees affect natives attitudes?

Lergetporer, Philipp; Piopiunik, Marc und Simon, Lisa (2021): Does the education level of refugees affect natives attitudes? In: European Economic Review, Bd. 134, 103710

Abstract

In recent years, Europe has experienced a large influx of refugees. While natives' attitudes toward refugees are decisive for the political feasibility of asylum policies, little is known about how these attitudes are shaped by information about refugees' characteristics. We conducted a survey experiment with a representative sample of more than 4,00 0 adults in Germany in which we randomly provide information about refugees' education level. Information provision strongly increases respondents' beliefs that refugees are well educated. The information also increases labor market competition concerns, decreases fiscal burden concerns, and positively affects general attitudes toward refugees. We perform several robustness analyses in additional experiments with more than 5,0 00 university students. In sum, we show that correcting misperceptions about refugees' education level has profound effects on natives' attitudes. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Volkswirtschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• ISSN: 0014-2921
• Sprache: Englisch