Economic Uncertainty, Job Threat and the Resiliency of the Millennial Generation's Attitudes Toward Immigration

Abstract

By drawing a distinction between conditional and prevalence factors that affect immigration attitudes, we examine if the recent economic recession has influenced the Millennial Generation’s attitudes about immigration, compared to non-Millennials. Using data from the 2008 American National Election Study, we conduct logit analysis to estimate the effects of theoretically relevant factors on immigration attitudes. Our results indicate that even in the face of poor economic conditions that disproportionately impacted Millennials, this cohort’s attitudes toward immigration are quite resilient. While Millennials’ immigration attitudes vary across a number of determinants, overall, they are more tolerant of immigration than non-Millennials. Millennials’ tolerance of immigration is consistent with their general liberal beliefs. This is true even under the conditional impact of economic self-interest and the conditional and prevalence impact of culture during the recession — a time when Millennials could have been susceptible to factors mitigating their feelings toward immigrants.

Keywords: immigration, Millennials, immigration attitudes, economic recession