ESSAYS ON DOMESTIC FACTORS DRIVING ATTITUDES TOWARDS IMMIGRANTS AND EMIGRATION

Author

Maliha Nazir, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

12-1-2017

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Sylwester, Kevin

Abstract

This dissertation investigates various micro and macro level domestic factors affecting attitudes towards immigrants and emigration of international students. The first chapter examines if an individual’s religiosity affects his attitude against immigrants in jobs in rich and poor countries using data from World Values Survey, wave 6 for the period 2010-2014. The main finding of this study is that per capita income affects an individual’s attitudes against immigrants in getting hired but religiosity does not matter in affecting attitudes of people against immigrants in rich and poor countries. The second chapter explores Europeans opposition against Muslims, Jewish and Roma immigrants based on perceived economic, religious and security threats in strong and weak economies using European Social Survey for the period 2014-2015. The results suggest that the state of economy dominates a respondent’s perception of economic, religious or security threats against banning Muslims, Jews and Roma immigrants. The third chapter sheds lights whether corruption in countries promote students to study abroad using data on outbound students from UNESCO for the period 1999-2015. The results indicate that corruption promotes emigration of international students for only high income countries in the sample but this result does not hold for low and middle income countries.