Population Aging and Individual Attitudes Toward Immigration: Disentangling Age, Cohort and Time Effects

50 Pages Posted: 26 Jul 2011

Date Written: July 2011

Abstract

In the face of rising old-age dependency ratios in industrialized countries like Germany, politicians and their electorates discuss the loosening of immigration policies as one policy option to ensure the sustainability of public social security systems. The question arises whether this policy option is feasible in aging countries: older individuals are typically found to be more averse to immigration. However, cross-sectional investigations may confound age with cohort effects.This investigation uses the 1999-2008 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel to separate the effect of age on immigration attitudes from cohort and also from time effects. Over the life cycle stated immigration concerns are predicted to increase well into retirement and decrease afterward. Relative to other issues, immigration concerns are found to actually decrease over the life cycle.

Keywords: immigration, demographic change, political economy

JEL Classification: D78, F22, J10

Suggested Citation

Calahorrano, Lena, Population Aging and Individual Attitudes Toward Immigration: Disentangling Age, Cohort and Time Effects (July 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1895305 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1895305

Lena Calahorrano (Contact Author)

RWTH Aachen ( email )

Aachen
Germany

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