The impact of labour market vulnerability: Explaining attitudes towards immigration in Europe

This chapter investigates to what extent, and under what conditions, labour market vulnerability may be an important factor shaping attitudes towards immigration. It begins by highlighting why labour market vulnerability might affect anti-immigrant sentiment, and why vulnerable workers might be especially sensitive to the size of the immigrant population. After reviewing various approaches to conceptualizing and assessing vulnerability, the remainder of the chapter uses European Social Survey data to examine the relationship between different measures of labour market vulnerability and anti-immigrant sentiment – both directly and in interaction with education and immigration levels. Two major findings emerge from the analysis. First, the type of labour market risk that we focus on makes a difference: overall vulnerability, as well as exposure to unemployment and temporary employment, are associated with greater anti-immigrant sentiment; while exposure to part-time employment, by contrast, has no clear effect. Second, the extent to which vulnerability matters appears to vary based on education levels and the size of the immigrant population: specifically, results suggest that labour market vulnerability has a larger impact on individuals with lower levels of education who live in countries with larger foreign-born populations.