What Economists Think About Immigration Doesn’t Really Matter nyti.ms/3dZLaGa
“Card likes to say that economic theory and evidence go only so far in the immigration debate. A team that Card led surveyed people in 20 countries in 2002 using the European Social Survey and found that economic issues such as beliefs about wage effects explained only about 20 percent of people’s attitudes toward immigration, with the remaining 80 percent accounted for by cultural issues such as how people felt about living with people of a different language, religion or culture.”
“In Europe as well as the United States, Card said, opposition to immigration is strongest among retirees without college educations who live in rural areas, who don’t encounter many immigrants and don’t compete with them for jobs, but may feel culturally threatened by them.”