What Factors Determine Attitudes to Immigration? A Meta-Analysis of Political Science Research on Immigration Attitudes (2009-2019)

Abstract

Attitudes toward immigration have attracted much scholarly interest and fuelled extensive empirical research in recent years. Many different hypotheses have been proposed to explain individual and contextual differences in attitudes towards immigration. However, it has become difficult to align all of the evidence that the literature has produce so far. The present article contributes to the systematization of political science empirical research on public attitudes toward immigration in the last decade. Using a simplified combined-tests technique, this paper identifies the micro- as well as macro-level factors that are consistently linked to attitudes toward immigration. It reports findings from a meta-analysis of the determinants of general attitudes toward immigration in published articles in thirty highly ranked peer-reviewed political science journals for the years 2009–2019. The results warrant a summary of factors affecting attitudes to immigration in a systematic, measurable and rigorous manner.

Keywords: Attitudes toward immigration, immigration attitudes, public opinion, meta-analysis