Europeans favour high-skilled, vulnerable and Christian refugees

Europeans are more likely to accept asylum-seekers who have higher employability, consistent testimonies, are particularly vulnerable and Christian. But despite being highly sensitive to those fleeing persecution, new research in September 2016 from the LSE, Stanford University and the University of Zurich revealed a prominent anti-Muslim bias amongst Europeans of all ages and social and political backgrounds.

The report How Economic, Humanitarian, and Religious Concerns Shape European Attitudes toward Asylum-Seekers by Kirk Banksak, Jens Hainmueller and Dominik Hangartner, detail the findings of a large-scale survey experiment. To understand what type of asylum-seeker European citizens would be willing to accept, 18,000 citizens in 15 countries were asked to evaluate 180,000 hypothetical profiles of asylum-seekers that randomly varied on relevant attributes such as gender, age, occupational skills, religion and country of origin. The results revealed that not all asylum-seekers are equal in the eyes of the public.

• Primary Source

ESO: Information Guide: European Migration Challenges http://www.europeansources.info/record/information-guide-european-migration-challenges/

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