Ungrateful Kids: A Generation Effect of Immigrant Attitudes

• In Event: Immigrant Politics I

Abstract

Political behavior literature on immigration has largely focused on native attitudes towards immigrants. But with immigrants constituting a growing share of the population around the world, it is important to study the political attitudes of immigrants themselves. The few studies on immigrant attitudes focus on individual issues, like welfare and preference for redistribution. We explore the attitudes of immigrants across a battery of issues using large scale election surveys in the US and cross-nationally. Controlling for typical demographic predictors, we find a generational difference in political attitudes across a number of issue spaces. In particular, we find that first generation immigrants are consistently more likely to be supportive of all governmental institutions compared to both second generation immigrants and native citizens. We propose theories to explain this phenomena.

Authors

• Ziyi Wu, Independent

• Sukrit Puri, MIT