%0 Journal Article
%T How perceptions of immigrants trigger feelings of economic and cultural threats in two welfare states
%A Kasper M Hansen
%A Sebastian Fietkau
%J European Union Politics
%@ 1741-2757
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1465116517734064
%X Better understanding of attitudes toward immigration is crucial to avoid misperception of immigration in the public debate. Through two identical online survey experiments applying morphed faces of non-Western immigrants and textual vignettes, the authors manipulate complexion, education, family background, and gender in Denmark and Germany. For women, an additional split in which half of the women wore a headscarf is performed. In both countries, highly skilled immigrants are preferred to low-skilled immigrants. Danes are more skeptical toward non-Western immigration than Germans. Essentially, less educated Danes are very critical of accepting non-Western immigrants in their country. It is suggested that this difference is driven by a large welfare state in Denmark compared to Germany, suggesting a stronger fear in welfare societies that immigrants will exploit welfare benefits
%K Migration
%K opinion
%K opinion formation
%K survey experiment
%K welfare state
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1465116517734064