the factor market, and the other is the welfare state.2 The influence of labor
market effects of immigration on individual attitudes has been examined by
Espenshade and Hempstead (1996), Citrin et al. (1997), Bauer et al. (2000),
Scheve and Slaughter (2001), Dustmann and Preston (2004), Mayda (2006)
and O’Rourke and Sinnott (2006). However, the main focus has been on
attitudes of native labor suppliers. Individual attitudes on the demand side
of the labor market have probably been thought too obvious to be studied
so far.
Our results do not confirm that employers were more pro-immigration
than the rest by reasoning that immigration would reduce the cost of labor.
Exceptions are sanitation-related activities such as sewage and refuse disposal
and recreational, cultural and sports activities. In these sectors, we find
that employers were less likely to prefer immigration restriction than the rest
among those who anticipated a wage fall due to immigration. In Austria,
employers were more pro-immigration than the rest, but we do not confirm
that this is due to the wage effect of immigration.
We also find that, contrary to our expectation, employers were more,
rather than less, likely to be anti-immigration than the rest in sectors where
foreign workers were highly present, such as household activities, construc-
tion, wholesale, hotels and restaurants.
The next section derives hypotheses by using a simple model. Section 3
describes the data. Section 4 presents results. Section 5 concludes.
2 The influence of public finance effects of immigration on individual preferences were
examined by Espenshade and Hempstead (1996), Citrin et al. (1997), Dustmann and
Preston (2004), Hanson, Scheve and Slaughter (2005) and Facchini and Mayda (2006).