Supporting the Accommodation of Voluntary and Involuntary Migrants: Humanitarian and Host Society Considerations

Maykel Verkuyten, Hadi Ghazi Altabatabaei, Wybren Nooitgedagt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Immigration leads to strong public and political debates in Europe and the Western world more generally. In some of these debates, migrants are described as either having little choice but to migrate (involuntary migrants) or migrating out of their own free choice (voluntary migrants). In two experimental studies among national samples of native Dutch respondents, we examined whether support for the accommodation of newcomers differs for voluntary and involuntary migrants and whether this depends on the relative importance of humanitarian considerations and host society considerations. The findings demonstrate that for people who find the topic of immigration personally important, involuntary, compared to voluntary, migration leads to stronger societal considerations which, in turn, is associated with weaker support for the accommodation of migrants. Additionally, humanitarian considerations are associated with stronger support but especially for participants who do not find the topic of immigration very important.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)267-274
Number of pages8
JournalSocial Psychological and Personality Science
Volume9
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2018
Externally publishedYes

Research programs

  • ESSB PA

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