The name is absent

respondents shared a similar opinion about immigration’s impact on the cost
of labor. ESS Round 1 contains responses to the following statement:²⁵

• Average wages and salaries are generally brought down by people com-
ing to live and work here.

One group consists of respondents who chose either “agree” or “strongly
agree” with the statement, and the other group consists of the remaining
non-missing respondents. By controlling for this subjective perception, we
find that the results change. In Table 6(a), we presents the results by
re-estimating the specification of Table 4 only for those who thought that
immigration would have a negative effect on wages. Table 6(b) presents the
results for those who did not think so.

In Table 6(a), we find the effect of employ statistically insignificant except
for Austria where it is negative. The magnitude is similar to the one we
found in Table 4. The other estimates suggest that the status of being an
employer did not make a difference to individual preferences for immigration
restriction in most of the countries even in a group of people who expected
immigration to reduce the cost of labor. (In addition, we find later in Table
6(b) that, in Austria, the effect of employ is significantly negative also among
those who did not expect immigration to reduce wages, suggesting that the
negative effect of employ in the country does not support our theoretical
reasoning.)

Turning to the other variables, there is now only one country for which
the effect of unemploy remains significantly positive, i.e., Italy. However,
²⁵Question D18

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