Public Attitudes toward Young Immigrant Men

In: American political science review, Band 113, Heft 1, S. 264-269

Abstract

Young men often make up a large share of newly arriving immigrant
populations. How this impacts attitudes is unclear: young men have
the potential to make substantial economic contributions, meaning
attitudes toward them may be more favorable. However, young men may
be seen as security and cultural threats, exacerbating
anti-immigrant attitudes. I conduct a conjoint experiment on a
sample of 2,100 Germans, asking them to evaluate groups of
immigrants with randomly varying shares of young men. The results
show that groups of immigrants with a large share of young men
receive substantially less support. Further tests reveal that
respondents also perceive of these groups as likely to pose security
and cultural threats; there is no evidence that young men are viewed
as having high economic potential. These results have implications
for the importance of economic, cultural, and security concerns in
underpinning attitudes toward immigrants.