As we expected, the more immigrant friends the respondent had, the less
likely to be anti-immigration she or he was except in Luxembourg where
the effects of friend dummies are not statistically significant. Note that
the proportion of non-nationals is very high in Luxembourg compared to the
other countries: hence the number of immigrant friends may not pick up the
closeness to immigrants as good as it does in the other countries.
Discrimination against minority races increases the probability of prefer-
ring immigration restriction in most of the countries. The effect of racist is
significantly positive also at the Union level. This seems to extend Dustmann
and Preston’s (2004) finding about the UK to other EU countries.
Being a citizen of the country is associated with a higher probability of
preferring immigration restriction than otherwise in Germany, Spain, Fin-
land, Greece and Ireland. The effect of citizen is significantly positive also
at the Union level.
The estimated effect of ethnic is mixed across the countries. Belonging
to an ethnic minority group in the country is associated with a lower proba-
bility of being anti-immigration than otherwise in Spain, Finland, Greece and
Luxembourg, but with a higher probability in Austria and Italy. The mag-
nitude of the effect is large for Italy. The effect of ethnic is not statistically
significant at the Union level, however.
Having at least one parent who was born outside the country is associated
with a lower probability of being restrictive than otherwise in France, Greece
and the Netherlands. This is also the case at the Union level. Scheve and
Slaughter (2001) for instance found that immigrants and their children were
less restrictive than the rest in the US.
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