25 Sep
2023
Does health affect attitudes towards immigration?
This paper examines whether people’s health affects their attitudes towards immigration. I first discuss various mechanisms through which health might affects attitudes towards immigration, including competition for scarce resources, channels related to subjective wellbeing, and behavioural immune system response. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1999-2020) and the European Social Survey (2002-2021), I find that poorer subjective health, as well as longstanding physical and mental health conditions, are strong predictors of anti-immigration sentiment. To understand what is driving these results, I explore the interplay between health and 1) individual perceptions of immigrants’ use of public services, 2) subjective wellbeing, and 3) COVID-19 related variables, including testing positive, as well as identify health conditions and wellbeing dimensions that are most strongly correlated with the anti-immigration sentiment. Overall, this study reveals physical and mental health as important determinants of attitudes toward immigration and highlights an overlooked dimension of the growing migration-wellbeing literature.