How should the government treat asylum seekers? The role of labour market vulnerability and migration in Europe

Is labour market vulnerability associated with harsher preferences on asylum-seeking policy? If so, how might the size of the existing foreign-born population condition this effect? We unpack these dynamics across 20 European countries using 2014 ESS and EU-SILC data. In doing so, we examine the relevance of labour market vulnerability both directly and in combination with: individual-level exposure to people of a different race or ethnicity; and the perceived or actual size of the foreign-born population. Results suggest that exposure to labour market risk is associated with a preference for harsher treatment, but that this relationship is driven by respondents with little to no interactions with the existing minority population. We also find that labour market vulnerability is associated with higher (lower) preferred severity in countries with a large (small) presumed foreign-born population. The actual size of the foreign-born population, by contrast, does not appear to matter.