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

abstract

  • 2015 Southwestern Social Science Association. Objective: 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. Methods: Employing data from the 2008 American National Election Study (ANES), we conduct a logit analysis to estimate the effects of theoretically relevant factors on immigration attitudes. Results: Our findings 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. Conclusion: 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.

published proceedings

  • SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

altmetric score

  • 0.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Ross, A. D., & Rouse, S. M.

citation count

  • 12

complete list of authors

  • Ross, Ashley D||Rouse, Stella M

publication date

  • November 2015

publisher