Attitudes Toward Immigration among Immigrants: Evidence from the European Social Survey data

This thesis examines whether immigrants hold different attitudes toward immigration compared with natives in Europe. Using pooled data from eleven waves of the European Social Survey, covering the period from 2002 to 2022, the analysis compares foreign-born and native-born respondents across several dimensions of immigration attitudes. The study focuses on openness toward further immigration, perceived economic effects, perceived cultural effects, and perceptions of immigration in relation to crime. The empirical strategy relies on ordinary least squares regressions with individual-level controls, including age, gender, education, income and occupation, as well as country-year fixed effects. The thesis also investigates whether the immigrant-native gap varies by individual characteristics and by immigrants’ region of origin. By distinguishing between different dimensions of immigration attitudes, the study contributes to the literature by moving beyond general measures of support or opposition to immigration. The expected contribution is to provide evidence on how immigrant status is associated with attitudes toward immigration in Europe and whether immigrants themselves evaluate immigration differently from the native-born population.