Labor Market Competition and Attitudes toward Immigrants : New Evidence from Asia

Immigrants in a destination country not only alter the prospects of economic development, but they also influence the livelihood or labor market outcomes of the natives. Using data from 10 Asian countries from the 2018-2020 World Value Survey, we provide new evidence on the determinants of the natives’ attitudes toward immigrants. We estimate logit models to find that the attitudes of native workers in Asia are primarily shaped by their economic concerns and labor market competition, whereby educational attainment, heavier immigrant competitions in their jobs, labor union membership, and part-time work status as opposed to working full-time significantly and negatively affect the natives’ attitudes towards immigrants. Non-economic concerns generally do not affect the natives’ attitudes except social capital and national security concerns—contrasting the findings of existing studies on Western countries. Moreover, we find that natives who face greater labor market competition from similarly-skilled immigrants prefer more restrictive immigration policies. Our results lend support for the factor-proportions framework in the Asian context