Urban Europeans' viewpoints on immigrants in the city: Re-considering how group threat operates across national and urban contexts

Research analyzing attitudes toward immigrants in Europe studies how the immigrant population size in a country conditions prejudicial attitudes against immigrants. While research on immigrant group size in countries is important, research considering the size of immigrant groups at other geographic scales, such as cities, is relatively unexplored. Using data on nearly 30,000 residents of 63 European cities from the Flash Eurobarometer 366 survey, we ask: how does the immigrant population size in a country and a city relate to how Europeans consider immigrants in their city? Findings show support for a group threat framework in that greater immigrant group size is linked to more anti-immigrant views, but this finding holds only for cities, not for countries. Our discussion centers on the ways in which cities may be linked to this threat, and how a multi-scalar conception of group threat can uncover varying relationships for immigration attitudes.     

Relational skill assets and anti-immigrant sentiments

This study introduces the role of relational skill assets in accounting for attitudes toward immigrants: relational skill assets. Drawing upon stratification researchers’ notion of “non-cognitive skills,” we build a theoretical framework highlighting the role of occupational skill requirements in explaining anti-immigrant sentiment. Then, utilizing two occupation-specific measures, interpersonal skill requirement and instrumental skill requirement, we construct an explanatory factor, relational skill specificity. We test its effect on anti-immigrant attitudes as well as on the concentration of foreign-born workers in occupations, using the 2004 national identity module of General Social Survey. The findings confirm our argument that workers with a higher possession of interpersonal skill assets relative to instrumental skill assets are exposed to less intense competitions with immigrants, and are therefore less likely to express anti-immigrant sentiments. Our findings suggest that occupational-level relational skill assets based on sociocultural differences play an important role in shaping native workers’ attitudes’ toward immigrants.     

Explaining voting in the UK's 2016 EU referendum: Values,attitudes to immigration,European identity and political trust

We consider the role of values as determinants of voting in the UK's 2016 EU referendum. First, we consider and clarify ‘values’ conceptually, before proceeding to utilise Schwartz's basic human values as the most appropriate. Second, we theorise how these basic human values determine both voting in the referendum as well as three of the most consistently demonstrated determinants of voting in that referendum: attitudes to immigration, identifying as European and trust in politicians. Finally, we demonstrate that this psychological theoretical framework effectively predicts voting behaviour in the referendum using multigroup structural equation modelling. Overall, we show that voting dynamics in the referendum are likely to reflect deeper, more personal psychological predispositions than those captured by existing explanations. In doing so, we make an original contribution to the literature on political psychology related to Brexit, Euroscepticism, political attitudes and electoral behaviour.     

How the macroeconomic context impacts on attitudes to immigration: Evidence from within-country variation

This study investigates the effects of the macroeconomic context on attitudes to immigration. Earlier studies do in some cases not provide significant empirical support for the existence of important such effects. In this article it is argued that this lack of consistent evidence is mainly due to the cross-national setup of these studies being vulnerable to estimation bias caused by country-specific factors. The present study instead analyzes attitude variation within countries over time. The results provide firm empirical support in favor of macroeconomic variation importantly affecting attitudes to immigration. As an illustration, the estimates indicate that the number of individuals in the average European country in 2012 who were against all immigration from poorer countries outside Europe was 40% higher than it would have been if macroeconomic conditions in that year had been as good as they were in 2006.     

Exposition to xenophobic content and support for right-wing populism: The asymmetric role of gender

This paper studies whether exposure to anti-immigrant sentiment in the online context affects the willingness to support an openly anti-immigration party, and shows how gender moderates the effect. We designed an online experiment in which participants were invited to an online forum to discuss immigration issues. We manipulate the social acceptability of xenophobic views by exposing participants to an increasing proportion of comments with anti-immigrant content. As a proxy for open support for anti-immigrant policies, we ask participants to donate to a well-known German party with a strong anti-immigration discourse: Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany). We find no evidence that exposure to increasing social acceptability of xenophobic content affected the willingness to donate. In an exploratory analysis, we find that women are particularly reluctant to donate after the anti-immigrant comments raised normative concerns. The results can shed light on the heterogeneous effect of counter-normative discourses on support for anti-immigrant parties.     

What determines the rejection of immigrants through an integrative model

This study tests different explanations of anti-immigrant attitudes through a model that incorporates aspects of group conflict, social identity and intergroup contact theories. Multigroup structural equation modelling was applied in three surveys, which tracked the same indicators in no similar economic and migratory contexts. In times of economic crisis, the perceived economic threat seems to lead more to discrimination and rejection of immigrants (in line with Group Conflict Theory), while sense of cultural threat is more likely to curb any desire for coexistence with them. Both threats show to be affected by the perceived size of the immigrant population, which increases the feeling of threat in those traditionally favourable to immigration. Other explanatory factors were also corroborated. Increasing contact with immigrants helps to lessen rejection, especially in the case of cultural threat. Effects due to insecurity were less marked and those relating to qualification were contrary to what was hypothesized.     

East is West? National feelings and anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe

This article challenges the conventional dichotomy between the civic-Western and ethnic-Eastern forms of national attachments and empirically explores the link between national feelings and anti-immigrant sentiment, as expressed by European publics. We use data from the 1995 and 2003 ISSP modules to: (1) expose the multidimensional nature of national feelings, and (2) investigate the cross-country variation in mean levels and inter-regional heterogeneity in the severity of effects on anti-immigrant sentiment for four dimensions of national feelings. The results show that there are important regional differences in the mean levels and effects exerted by the civic and ethnic national feelings at both points in time. Overall, these findings point to the limited relevance of the conceptual demarcation between the Western-civic and Eastern-ethnic types, as a trend of cross-regional convergence is rather strongly supported. We discuss the implications of the results within the broader context of post-communist transition and eastward enlargement of the European Union.     

Building walls or opening borders? Global immigration policy attitudes across economic,cultural and human security contexts

Using data from the World Values Survey for 51 countries, we conduct a multi-level analysis with mixed effects multinomial logistic regression models to explore the effects of economic context, cultural context, and national security events on immigration policy attitudes. Analyses of attitudes towards immigration to date have been limited in key respects: the scope has been mostly restricted to Western Europe and the Americas; limited attention has been paid to institutional and sociopolitical features of the macro-context; and national security events have been rarely taken into account. We propose a theoretical framework incorporating three overarching contextual domains. We find support for two of the three contextual domains. Contrary to our expectation, macro-level economic context shows no association immigration policy attitudes, and socio-cultural context evinces unexpected patterns. However, in the national security domain, recent terrorist events demonstrate a consistent association with anti-immigration policy attitudes.     

论欧洲移民问题的成因

从20世纪70年代到90年代,欧洲的外国移民问题逐渐成为影响欧洲国家的政治、经济、社会安全、文化价值观等领域的核心社会问题。这既是进入欧洲国家的外国移民由"欧洲特点"向"非欧洲特点"转变、移民文化变更因素的结果,也有欧洲国家自身经济衰退、政治与移民政策摇摆不定的原因。     

欧洲犹太移民潮与以色列国家的移民问题

在严格意义上说 ,以色列是现代世界上唯一的移民国家。一是指以色列国家首先是由欧洲国家的犹太移民建立的 ;二是指以色列犹太人口的一半是建国后从世界各地移民而来。从欧洲历史上看 ,欧洲国家的犹太人 ,经历了五次的“阿里亚”(AL IYA)即“移居以色列地”的移民潮 ,最终确立了以色列国家的合法地位。以色列建国后 ,从世界各地进一步移民 ,促进了经济和社会的高速发展和现代化 ,但也带来了日益严重的移民社会问题。     

Growing educational differentials in the retreat from marriage among Korean men

Applying discrete-time hazard models to person-year data constructed from 1% microdata sample of 2010 Korean Census, we explore how men's education affects their transition to first marriage, and how the relationship between education and marriage has changed across three 10-year birth cohorts of Korean men born from 1946 to 1975. Drawing on Oppenheimer's theory of marriage and review of changing educational and economic contexts of Korean men, we develop a hypothesis on growing educational differentials in marriage. We find that the high educated delay marriage until later ages but catch up to the extent to which they are eventually more likely to marry than the low educated. There is a continued trend across cohorts toward the delay and avoidance of marriage at all educational levels. However, the trend of retreat from marriage has been more substantial for men with high school or less education compared to men with a university degree, leading to growing educational gaps over time in marriage. Among the three cohorts, the youngest cohort, among which low educated men's economic prospects have particularly deteriorated due to rapid educational expansion and economic crisis, shows most pronounced decline in marriage.     

论我国少数民族人权保障对促进社会主义建设的价值

中国是一个多民族的国家,近些年来,我国的经济有了突飞猛进的发展,国际地位也有了很大程度的提高。但是有许多国家不断地以中国少数民族人权遭受损害为借口来干涉中国的内政。所以,如何保护我国少数民族人权、维护少数民族地区稳定成为了当今中国政府所面临的主要问题之一。只有维护好地区的稳定和民族的团结,才能够更好地保证国家经济的繁荣和政治的稳定。     

从全球化角度解读欧洲移民问题

从第二次世界大战结束到今天,欧洲移民问题经过多年的发展,对欧洲各国的政治、经济、安全、民族和社会文化等提出了严峻的挑战,引起了欧洲各国的强烈反响。产生上述问题的原因多种多样,从全球化角度来看,欧洲移民问题是全球化问题的一个表象,其实质是全球化带来的问题。     

Societal Inequality and individual subjective well-being: Results from 68 societies and over 200,000 individuals, 1981–2008

Income inequality has been contentious for millennia, a source of political conflict for centuries, and is now widely feared as a pernicious “side effect” of economic progress. But equality is only a means to an end and so must be evaluated by its consequences. The fundamental question is: What effect does a country's level of income inequality have on its citizens' quality of life, their subjective well-being? We show that in developing nations inequality is certainly not harmful but probably beneficial, increasing well-being by about 8 points out of 100. This may well be Kuznets's inverted “U”: In the earliest stages of development some are able to move out of the (poorly paying) subsistence economy into the (better paying) modern economy; their higher pay increases their well-being while simultaneously increasing inequality. In advanced nations, income inequality on average neither helps nor harms. Estimates are from random-intercept fixed-effects multi-level models, confirmed by over four dozen sensitivity tests. Data are from the pooled World Values/European Values Surveys, Waves 1 to 5 with 169 representative national samples in 68 nations, 1981 to 2009, and over 200,000 respondents, replicated and extended in the European Quality of Life Surveys.     

新疆构建向西开放新格局的国内外宏观环境分析

后金融危机背景下,世界经济的复苏过程存在很大的不确定性,经济走低的风险仍然存在,全球贸易增长的步伐会非常缓慢;中亚五国经济在未来几年将处于恢复和上升阶段,但仍面临着国际能源价格周期性波动带来的不确定性和周期性风险;中国经济也将步入低谷期,增长率将低于9%。同时,中国对外贸易仍面临诸多不确定因素。国内外宏观环境的变化使新疆构建向西开放新格局的各种积极变化和不利因素同时存在。     

The mental health consequences of the economic crisis in Europe among the employed,the unemployed,and the non-employed

Applying a multi-level framework to the data from the European Social Survey’s Round 3 (2006) and Round 6 (2012), we assessed the crisis by increases in rates of unemployment, while also controlling for countries’ pre-crisis economic conditions. We found a positive relationship between depression and an increase in national unemployment rates. This relationship can be only partly ascribed to an increase in the number of unemployed and those employed in nonstandard job conditions—with the exception of the self-employed and women working part-time. The crisis effect is more pronounced among men and those between 35 and 49 years of age. Moreover, in strongly effected countries, the crisis has changed the relationship between part-time work and depression, between depression and certain subcategories of the unemployed (looking for a job or not looking), and between depression and the non-employed.     

The ‘developmental gradient’ revisited: Australian children's time with adult caregivers from infancy to middle childhood

Children's time use patterns represent a potentially important mechanism for the transmission of disadvantage across generations. Recent international research indicates that more educated mothers tailor the content of time with children to favour activities that are particularly important at different developmental stages – a finding that has been termed the ‘developmental gradient’. Using time diary data for a sample of Australian children, this paper seeks to extend previous work in several ways. We first establish whether a ‘developmental gradient’ exists in Australian children's time with mothers, comparable to the results from international studies. We go further, however, by extending the analysis to consider time investments provided by fathers and other adult caregivers, and examining the importance of resources for explaining the patterns of time use. Consistent with theory, our results indicate that educational gaps in time spent ‘teaching’ are largest in the 4–5 age group, gaps in ‘play’ time with fathers are largest for toddlers (2–3), and gaps in ‘enrichment’ are largest for 6–7 and 8–9. Time with parents appears to be the primary driver of observed patterns of time spent ‘teaching’ and ‘playing’, while for ‘enrichment,’ differences are distributed across caregivers, but largest for non-parent caregivers. These results are not driven by differential access to resources. Our results suggest that the developmental gradient represents a plausible mechanism for the transmission of intergenerational disadvantage in Australia, and that policy responses focussed on better educating parents to understand the developmental needs of their children are likely to be an effective response.     

语料库在商务英语口译中的应用

新经济环境的变革影响着社会整体环境的变化,从全球化的经济贸易形式,到我国的整体经济产业结构,都会受到新经济环境的影响。人才培养基本方向和需求也将发生一定程度的转变,商务英语口译类人才在新经济环境作为对外交流的高级人才其市场需求将不断增大,克服目前商务英语口译教学难点,培养商务英语口译人才,可以从语料库的建设入手,通过平行语料库在教学中的应用,实现内涵式的高等人才培养。     

Macro-conditions and immigrants' happiness: Is moving to a wealthy country all that matters?

Migrants look for a better life. In what kind of country will they live happiest? Many migrants aspire to move to wealthy countries, but non-economic factors might be important as well in making a country livable for migrants. This issue is addressed here by examining the impact of macroeconomic conditions and non-economic macro-conditions (good governance and a pleasant social climate) on immigrants' happiness in twenty European nations. We find that immigrants' happiness depends both on economic and non-economic macro-conditions. The social climate is especially important, particularly in terms of a positive attitude in society towards migrants. Our findings imply that the choice of destination country matters for migrants’ happiness and that the discrepancy between migration motives and migration outcomes may constrain immigrants from maximizing subjective gains via migration.     

Structural stability,quantitative change: A latent class analysis approach towards gender role attitudes in Germany

Since the 1960s, social science surveys have aimed to assess respondents' attitudes towards gender roles. In this paper, a model-based clustering approach towards gender role attitudes is proposed in contrast to commonly used dimensional methods. Working from a role theory perspective, we expect different profiles in the population when it comes to role expectations. Using data from the German General Social Survey in 1991 and 2012, we identify attitude patterns via multi-group latent class analysis, taking differences between Eastern and Western Germany into account. Five latent classes representing different combinations of role expectations towards couples and parents and varying levels of intensity are distinguished. Attitude change is assessed by comparing latent class prevalence over time, while statistically testing for measurement equivalence. The analysis reveals a regionally variable decrease in traditional role models: Eastern Germany exhibits a faster pace of ‘de-traditionalization’ and less potential for role conflicts regarding working mothers.