Acculturation Orientations Matters: Conjoint Analysis of Immigrant Acceptance

• In Event: Methodological Advances in the Politics of Immigration and Refugees: Part 2

Abstract

This study provides a comparative analysis of how immigrant characteristics influence native attitudes towards immigrants. A large body of studies argue, based on the evidence from Western countries, that natives prefer immigrants who can contribute to society and who do not threaten their country's cultural and economic norms. Very few studies, however, have examined whether these findings travel to Asia, where a majority of migrants are coming from other Asian countries with less visible diversity in terms of race and ethnicity. In this study, I extend the existing studies by focusing on Asia to investigate whether immigrant preferences are associated with particular immigrant characteristics that imply cultural distinctiveness and a potential failure to fit into the host society. In addition, I examine how different perspectives on migrant integration affect natives’ evaluation of immigrant success and acceptance. Specifically, I investigate whether immigrant attitudes differ by navies’ acculturation orientations that are classified along two dimensions: the willingness to interact with culturally different individuals, and the inclination to retain the own cultural identity (i.e., cultural conservatism). To test my theory, I use a choice-based conjoint design that enables me to manipulate many attributes at once. Immigrant characteristics that represent different dimensions of successful assimilation, such as profession, education level, language skill, religious affiliation, number of native friends, migration motivation, gender, and country of origin, are manipulated within a table comparing two pairs of immigrants. The findings of this paper indicate that native preferences for immigrants in Asia largely follow a similar pattern to those found in the Western context. I also find that natives with more culturally conservative views on immigrant integration tend to punish undesirable immigrant attributes more severely than those with less conservative views.

Author

• Boyoon Lee, Pennsylvania State University