Research Ines Homburg

Abstract

The decision to migrate is complex. One potential influence of international migration is the anti-immigration attitudes held in a host country. Such attitudes represent a barrier for immigrants' success, when associated with discrimination. They add a 'cost' on immigrants and reduce the likelihood of perceiving the benefits of migrating greater than the costs. Thus far, however, little research exists on this. After a thorough literature review and theoretical contribution, this project will (1) empirically isolate the causal effect of anti-immigration attitudes on the inflow of migrants and return migration, (2) examine whether any heterogenous effects exist in terms of migrant characteristics, (3) uncover the role of media reporting in transmitting the attitudes from destination to origin countries, and (4) formulate policy implications and recommendations. These objectives will be achieved by exploiting unexpected events (natural experiments) that gave a signal of a country's public opinion, namely the Brexit referendum and Trump election. Using multiple econometric methods, we will examine various migration indicators. We expect that the events led to less immigration and a small increase in return migration. We hypothesize that media reporting functioned as a transmission mechanism. Our research will gain insights into how policymakers can approach natives' anti-immigration attitudes, which consequences to expect, and how these consequences can be mitigated.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Vujić Sunčica
• Fellow: Homburg Ines

Research team(s)

• Economics

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Britain's referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU) seemingly came as a shock to the public. "Voting Leave" can be interpreted as a trigger of society's dissatisfaction with the state of the economy and the EU's role in it, which resulted in emotional responses and action from the British and foreign nationals. In the months following the referendum, there was an observed increase in the number of citizenship and permanent residence applications from the EU citizens living in the United Kingdom (UK), and a change in migration patterns to and from the European Union. Motivated by the observed societal response, this project aims to establish (i) whether the Brexit referendum vote caused observed changes in migration patterns (or merely exacerbated a previous trend), (ii) what were the specific mechanisms behind it, (iii) which heterogenous effects can be identified, (iv) what was the role of the (social) media reporting as a transmission mechanism, and (v) what are the expected future migration trends and policy issues. Using an array of robust empirical (econometric) techniques, we will consider these changes for the UK as a whole and its regions and investigate whether the effects are temporary or long lasting. Further analysis of other influential factors such as labour market and socio-economic characteristics of the locality, ethnic and national diversity of the area will complement the main results. An extended period of analysis will allow us to (i) assess robustness of the main findings, (ii) evaluate the effect of earlier and subsequent "shock" events in the UK (e.g., the announcement of the referendum, triggering of Article 50, the COVID-19 effect, and actual UK exit from the EU in January 2021), which will be important for assessing the relative strength of the Brexit referendum effect and (iii) analyse the effect of the Brexit referendum vote as well as the complete Brexit process on migration policies and trends in the UK and in Europe. Proposed research will be of interest to academics in the fields of economics, sociology and social policy, demography, social geography, and political studies and will further contribute to it.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Vujić Sunčica
• Fellow: Homburg Ines

Research team(s)

• Economics

Project type(s)

• Research Project