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Coming to terms with diversity: British attitudes to ethnic minorities and immigrants
Robert FordCCSR, University of
Key Findings
Prejudice against ethnic minorities is declining in Britain
This decline is primarily a generational process: slow overall change masks dramatic shifts between generations
The British discriminate in favour of white and culturally British immigrants
This discrimination is principally (though not only) due to racial prejudice and authoritarianism
Younger generations discriminate much less
Mass immigration and ethnic diversity are recent developments
Pre WWII Britain was ethnically homogenous but ruled over a diverse empire. Net emigration from Britain to Empire 1870-1950
Privileged status of Commonwealth migrants 1948-83
Mass migration from Commonwealth began in early 1950s, avg 50,000 p.a. since: British EM population 1951: 80,000 British EM population 2001: 4,635,000
Further boost to migration from international commitments (EU, asylum conventions)
Why do attitudes towards ethnic minorities and immigrants matter?
Disadvantages EMs suffer due to discrimination Worse outcomes in employment, education, health,
housing Hostility to minorities could undermine
community cohesion and social capital (Putnam, 2007)
Immigration has been a potent political issue: Mainstream: Powell, Thatcher, Howard? Far right: Nat Front, BNP
Large scale immigration is likely to continue Population ageing; International commitments
Existing research
Most research has focussed on EM disadvantage and effects of
discrimination British attitudes to immigration (in general);
support for the far-right Virtually no work on
General prevalence of prejudice Attitudes to specific immigrant groups
Two studies: ethnic minorities and immigrants
Both use British Social Attitudes data 1983-1996
1.Ethnic minorities “social distance” indicators Attitudes to black and Asian minority
groups 2. Immigrants
“Reduce immigration” question Attitudes to immigrants from four regions
Ethnic minorities: hypotheses
Prejudice against ethnic minorities is falling Biological racism no longer legitimate Elites more tolerant More contact with EMs: indirect (media) and
direct (school, work, neighbourhood) This fall will be primarily generational…
…because racism is more like a value (Inglehart, 1997) than an attitude (Zaller, 1992)
This fall will be more rapid among the educated, the middle class and women Internalised new tolerant norms more quickly Less economically threatened by EMs
More prejudice against Asian minorities?
Early researchers argued racial difference most important source of prejudice:
“Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack” More recently some have argued that race is
no longer the most salient source of prejudice. Cultural differences now matter more (Modood, 2005)
Asian minorities, esp Muslims, suffer more from this “cultural prejudice”
Methods
Ordered logistic regression analysis of the pooled (7 survey) dataset
Effects estimated for attitudes to black and Asian groups separately
Controls for class, education, gender, unemployment, council tenure, lifecycle events
Interactions to test for variation in generational shifts for different social groups. Significant interactions found for gender, class and
education
Racial prejudice is declining
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
Year
% m
ind
so
cial
co
nta
ct
Mind Asian spouse totalMind Asian spouse a lotMind black spouse totalMind black spouse a lot
There is a strong generational shift towards acceptance of EMs
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975
Cohort birth year
% m
ind
so
cial
co
nta
ct
Mind Asian spouse total
Mind Asian spouse a lot
Mind black spouse total
Mind black spouse a lot
This generational shift is the main driver of attitude change
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1983 1984 1986 1989 1991 1994 1996
Survey Year
% m
ind
a b
lack
sp
ou
se
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
Generational shifts are not the same for everyone
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975
Cohort birth year
% w
ho m
ind
Graduate woman: Mind Asian spouse
Unqualified man: Mind Asian spouse
Graduate woman: Mind black spouse
Unqualified man: Mind black spouse
To summarise…
White British are becoming less hostile to EMs This is a generational shift, and is likely to
continue… Hostility to white-Muslim intermarriage in 2003: 27%
However, significant prejudices remain, and are likely to decline only slowly
Reactions to both minorities very similar; little evidence of “cultural racism”.
Attitudes are more polarised among the young: Prejudice virtually unknown among highly qualified and
women; remains common among the unqualified and men
Immigrants: hypotheses The perceived threat immigrants pose to
cultural unity is the most important factor driving European opposition to immigrants (Ivarflaten, 2006; Sides and Citrin, 2007)
Groups that are more different will be perceived as more threatening and will be more opposed
There will therefore be an “ethnic hierarchy” in immigration preferences, with two dimensions: Race: White immigrants preferred Culture: Immigrant groups with more “British”
culture (language, religion) preferred
Hypotheses 2 Racial prejudice will be a major explanation for
these immigration preferences Authoritarianism will be a second major
explanation: Authoritarians value cultural unity and are more likely
to perceive difference as threatening (Altemeyer, 2007) Racial prejudice and authoritarianism are in
generational decline (Tilley, 2005) Therefore younger cohorts will be less opposed to
immigration in general and will discriminate less against less favoured immigrant groups
Methods
Binary logistic regression analysis of opposition to immigration from four regions Australasia, Europe, West Indies, India
Effects of period, cohort, prejudice and authoritarianism estimated
Controls for education, class, unemployment, council tenure, newspaper readership, and partisan identification
There is a consistent ethnic hierarchy in immigration preferences
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
Year
% o
pp
os
ed
to
im
mig
rati
on
Australasia
Western Europe
West Indies
Indian Subcontinent
Younger generations oppose immigration less, and discriminate less
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
pre-1910
1914 1919 1924 1929 1934 1939 1944 1949 1954 1959 1964 1969 1974
Cohort birth year
% o
pp
osed
to
im
mig
rati
on
AustralasiaEuropeWest IndiesIndian Subcontinent
Race and culture both matter, but race matters more
% oppose immigration
1983 1984 1986 1989 1994 1996 Total
White average
36 43 41 37 37 36 38
Nonwhite average
70 73 68 66 60 54 64
Difference 34 30 27 29 23 18 26
“British” average
48 53 51 48 44 41 47
Non “British” average
58 62 58 56 52 49 55
Difference 10 9 7 8 8 8 8
Discriminatory opposition is very pronounced among the prejudiced…
% oppose immigration
1983 1984 1986 1989 1994 1996 Total
Australasian Immigration
26 37 38 33 38 37 34
EU immigration
46 56 55 45 54 55 52
West Indian immigration
77 82 80 78 75 75 78
Indianimmigration
81 86 83 83 82 78 83
Diff EU-Aus 20 19 17 12 16 18 18
Diff WI-Aus 51 45 42 45 37 38 44
Diff Ind-Aus 55 49 45 50 44 41 49
…but the ethnic hierarchy holds for the unprejudiced too
% oppose immigration
1983 1984 1986 1989 1994 1996 Total
Australasian Immigration
29 34 34 33 28 27 30
EU immigration 43 44 42 40 35 34 39West Indian
immigration58 59 55 51 47 42 50
Indian immigration
61 63 58 55 52 46 55
Diff EU-Aus 14 10 8 7 7 7 9
Diff WI-Aus 29 25 21 18 19 15 20
Diff Ind-Aus 32 29 24 22 24 19 25
Authoritarianism has a similar effect
25.9
33.2
49.5
55.5
37
50.9
71.9
77.9
11.1
17.7
22.4 22.4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Australian immigration European immigration West Indian immigration Indian immigration
% o
pp
ose
d
Summary of findings White Britons discriminate in favour of
immigrants like themselves. Racial similarity matters more than culture
Prejudice and authoritarian values are the most important drivers of general opposition to immigration and of discrimination against non-white, non-British groups
Generational decline in these attitudes means discrimination is weaker among younger generations, though it is still very significant
Overall summary
Britain is becoming more tolerant of ethnic minorities and more open to immigration...
…but this is happening slowly… …because prejudice and discrimination,
once fixed, are hard to remove… …so change is primarily generational… …large changes between cohorts… …but cohorts stick around a long time
Discussion points: race What has happened since 1996? No
comparable data… Are the measures of racial prejudice accurate?
Social desirability bias (Kuklinski et al, 1997) Need inobtrusive measures of prejudice: implicit
attitude tests; survey experiments; vignettes (Sniderman and Hagendoorn, 2007)
Why is prejudice falling more slowly for men than women? Some mechanisms offered for this finding (values,
gender roles) but no systematic investigation of it as yet
Discussion points: immigration
Where the public thinks “immigrants” are coming from will matter enormously for their opinions on immigration So where do the public think immigrants are
coming from? What determines this? Does the generational decline in racial
prejudice mean race and immigration are less potent political issues? Much higher rates of all forms of immigration in
2000-2008 than in 1970s; more muted public response
