Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants in Emerging Markets: The Case of Mexico

Transcription

1 Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants in Emerging Markets: The Case of Mexico (PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR S PERMISSION) Covadonga Meseguer, CIDE (Mexico City) covadonga.meseguer@cide.edu Gerardo Maldonado, CIDE (Mexico City) gerardo.maldonado@cide.edu

2 Abstract In this paper, we study the attitudes of the Mexican public toward foreigners. To understand why a country that has never been an immigration magnet still embraces a restrictive immigration policy, we entertain two hypotheses. We enquire whether fears of labor market competition explain attitudes toward immigration policy and toward immigrants. In addition, we contemplate whether non-economic concerns such as ethnocentric or security threats shape those attitudes. To test these hypotheses, we rely on history and on a novel survey resource that provides information about the main groups of immigrants (Americans and Guatemalans) residents in Mexico. Interestingly, our results are in line with what it is known about attitudes toward immigrants in advanced countries: social dispositions, rather than material concerns, explain attitudes toward immigrants in general and toward both groups of foreigners in particular. Concerns about insecurity, a moderate level of ethnocentrism, and a historically rooted defensive nationalism explain how Mexicans view immigrants. Keywords: Immigration, Foreigners, Mexico, Labor Market Competition, Nationalism 2

3 Introduction Unlike other Latin American countries, in which immigration was a massive phenomenon at the turn of the 20th century (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay or Chile), Mexico is not a country of immigrants. According to the 2010 Census, about a million foreigners live in Mexico, amounting to less than 1 percent of the Mexican population. Yet, only one out of three Mexicans think that there are few foreigners living in the country. North Americans constitute the lion s share of the foreigners with residence in Mexico, followed at some distance by Guatemalans and Spaniards. Given that Mexico has never been an immigration magnet, not even in the period when immigration policy was liberal, the question arises as to why the country has embraced and continues to embrace a restrictive immigration policy. We explore the determinants of individual attitudes toward immigration in Mexico. Whereas attitudes toward immigrants have been widely analyzed in advanced countries (Citrin et al. 1997; Fetzer 2000; Chandler and Tsai 2001; Scheve and Slaughter 2001; McLaren 2003; Mayda 2006; Sides and Citrin 2007; Citrin and Sides 2008; Hainmuller and Hiscox 2007, 2010), this paper is to our knowledge one of the first to study what shapes individual attitudes toward immigrants in labor abundant countries and countries of out- and transmigration. Mexico deserves special attention in that the two major groups of immigrants (Americans and Guatemalans) are radically different both in terms of qualifications and of racial traits. Moreover, the demographics of those that indicate that they were born outside Mexico, particularly in the United States, have been profoundly shaped by decades of high rates of Mexican emigration to the United States. Mexico is also a very important route for transmigrants on their way to the US. We employ a new survey resource, the 2010 wave of the survey Mexico, the Americas and the World and entertain two hypotheses. First, we explore whether material interests explain opinions toward immigration policy and foreigners. Economic models of migration anticipate the distributional impact of immigration in receiving countries. According to these models, those individuals whose wages, income, and employment prospects are threatened by the arrival of foreigners should support restrictive policies and have unenthusiastic opinions about immigrants. In short, individuals with skills similar to those of immigrants should oppose the loosening of migration restrictions. The alternative hypothesis holds that non-economic factors such as national pride, concerns about insecurity, and (in)tolerance of foreign ideas determine how individuals regard foreigners and how they value the arrival of immigrants. As we show, both material and ethnocentric concerns have shaped immigration policy in Mexico over the 20th century. With its detailed questionnaire asking about different groups of immigrants, the survey Mexico, The Americas and The World is a unique tool to test whether these two types of concerns (economic and non-economic) continue to shape the views that contemporary Mexicans have of immigrants in general and of Americans and Guatemalans in particular. We study the opinions that Mexicans hold about immigrants and about the number of foreigners living in the country. We use the latter as a proxy for immigration policy preferences. Our findings can be summarized as follows. First, fears of labor market competition exert little leverage in explaining how the Mexican public regards foreigners. Using several operationalizations of the skill levels of individuals (years of schooling, educational attainment, and occupational skills) as well as their labor market status (in or out of the workforce), we find that individual self-interest is weakly related to opinions about foreigners and about preferences for immigration policy. The only evidence we have that concerns about labor market competition are significant is that those native Mexicans who are more educated and outside the workforce and, therefore, not competing with immigrants have better opinions of foreigners. However, skill levels do not explain attitudes toward immigrants among those in the workforce. 3

4 The economy does matter, but in a sociotropic way (Kinder and Kiewiet 1981). Thinking that foreigners contribute to the economy is positively related to holding a better opinion of immigrants. However, this does not make Mexicans less restrictionist. Interestingly, this paradox is especially evident among those in the workforce. Regarding non-economic variables, we find that a strong sense of national pride is related to restrictionist views of immigration policy but, paradoxically, that it is unrelated to opinions about immigrants. Indeed, this factor looms as the most influential in shaping Mexicans opinions about the number of immigrants in the country. Also, given the visibility of recent events involving the security of Central American emigrants and human right abuses of transmigrants on their way to the United States, we took security concerns into account. 1 Those that think that migrants pose a security threat are less liberal and have worse opinions of immigrants. Finally, from a demographic point of view, males and young individuals hold a better opinion of foreigners. And in contrast with advanced countries, those placing themselves to the right of the political spectrum are more likely to think that immigrants are few in number. None of these variables is particularly strong, though. The paper proceeds as follows. In section 1, we review different distributional theories of migration in order to identify which individuals are expected to be pro-immigration and which anti-immigration, in light of who wins and who loses from immigration. In section 2 we describe the relevant characteristics of contemporary immigrants to Mexico (main groups, skill levels, and occupations). As will be explained, this exercise is absolutely necessary in a case such as Mexico, for two reasons. First, virtually no information is available on immigrants and their impact on the Mexican economy. Second, decades of massive emigration to the United States have dramatically affected the characteristics of the main group of foreigners in the country (namely, U.S citizens). In section 3 we briefly review Mexican immigration policy from a historical perspective. In this account, we show how a strong nationalist ideology has shaped the way immigration policy has evolved. In section 4 we present our data and models. In section 5 we discuss our results. We conclude in section 6 with a discussion of how these findings relate to our current knowledge about the determinants of attitudes toward immigrants. 1. Economic Concerns: Labor Market Competition and Attitudes toward Immigrants. Political economy accounts of public opinion about immigrants put the emphasis on labor market fears. The dominant model used to predict who wins and who loses from immigration is the closed economy factor-proportions (FP) model (Borjas 1999; Borjas, Freeman and Katz, 1996, 1997). This model derives the distributional consequences of immigration from the effect of immigration on the supply of factors of production in the destination country. The fundamental factor is the difference between the skill compositions of natives and immigrants. If immigrants are less skilled than natives, low-skilled natives lose and highskilled natives win from higher immigration. The reverse occurs if immigrants are relatively more skilled than natives. Overall, the prediction of the FP model is straightforward: natives should oppose the arrival of immigrants with similar skill levels, but favor the arrival of immigrants with different skills. 2 1 For instance, in August transmigrants were killed in S. Fernando, Tamaulipas. Transmigrants are often the objects of abuse by organized criminals and lately drug traffickers; and although they are obviously the victims rather than the cause of these violent crimes, public opinion may associate immigration and transmigration with deteriorating security. See CNDH (2011). 2 More ambiguities arise when models are complicated by assumptions concerning factor specificity (as opposed to fully mobile factors), by the fact that natives can experience real income effects from the change in output mix, and when economic models allow for economies of scale in production. 4

5 The empirical tests of the impact of immigration on labor markets in advanced countries produce inconclusive results. Some studies claim substantial and negative effects on the wages and employment of low-skilled natives; other studies report very small effects, and yet a recent study finds positive effects on the average wages of natives (Hainmueller and Hiscox 2010: 3). Empirical tests of how well the distributional forecasts of the FP model explain the attitudes of individuals toward immigrants are equally mixed. The oft-quoted papers by Scheve and Slaughter (2001) and Mayda (2006) report results that give strong support to the FP model. Mayda (2006) uses cross-national survey data taken from the 1995 National Identity Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) with information for 22 advanced countries and data from the World Values Survey (WVS) with information for 44 countries, mostly developing ones. The author finds that in advanced countries proimmigration attitudes are positively correlated with higher skills, whereas in developing countries the opposite occurs: pro-immigration attitudes are negatively correlated with skill levels. The explanation is that advanced countries attract immigrants who are less skilled than natives, whereas developing countries attract immigrants who are more skilled than natives. Indeed, Mayda finds that any country with per capita GDP in 1995 (PPP-adjusted) lower than approximately $4,480 is characterized by a negative correlation between skill and proimmigration preferences, whereas individuals from countries with per capita GDP above this threshold are more likely to be in favor of immigration the more educated they are (2006, p. 519; emphasis added). 3 Different results are reported by Hainmueller and Hiscox (2007, 2010), who use the European Social Survey and an original survey experiment in the US respectively examine the relationship between individual skills and attitudes toward immigrants. In both studies, the questions about immigrants are refined to distinguish between attitudes toward high-skilled immigrants and those toward low-skilled immigrants. This distinction is crucial to a valid test of the labor market competition hypothesis. Contrary to the simple predictions of the FP model, the authors find that people with higher education and higher occupational skill levels are more likely to favor immigration regardless of the skill levels of immigrants. The results of the survey experiment are similar. They find that both low-skilled and highskilled natives prefer highly skilled immigrants. This result calls into question the role of labor market competition and material interests in shaping individual attitudes toward immigrants. On the contrary, the authors find that values of tolerance and sociotropic views about how immigrants contribute to the economy explain much of the relationship between greater skills and pro-immigration attitudes. Other papers similarly downplay the role of material interests as opposed to noneconomic concerns such as ethnocentrism in shaping pro- More sophisticated models of the distributional impact of immigration arrive at ambiguous predictions. For instance, according to the Heckscher Ohlin (HO) model, which presumes a small open economy, international trade can offset the impact of immigration if the arrival of new factors alters the output proportions of tradable and non-tradable goods. If the economy is small relative to the world, production is diversified, and/or the inflows of immigrants are small in comparison with the local labor supply, local wages will be unaffected. This is called factor price insensitivity. In short, the predictions of the simple FP model vary with the assumptions that are added to the model. 3 Mayda (2006) uses a measure of the skill mix of natives relative to that of immigrants in the destination country, which can be calculated only for her sample of advanced countries. For developing countries, the author uses an indirect measure, which is the (log) of per capita GDP of the destination country. Mayda takes as point of departure a simple one-sector model in which countries share the same production function. In this simple model, skilled labor tends to move from high to low per capita GDP countries to benefit from higher real rates of return to skills. In other words, poor countries are more likely to receive immigrants who are more skilled than natives. 5

6 and anti-immigration attitudes (Citrin et al. 1997; Chandler and Tsai 2001; Sides and Citrin 2007). As should be evident, one important limitation of this literature is that it almost exclusively explores attitudes toward immigrants in advanced countries, where labor is scarce (Mayda is the exception). The lack of cross-national and comparable data on immigrant flows and stocks and their levels of qualification relative to those of natives is, of course, a major problem in exploring the impact of immigration on the labor markets of less developed countries (LDCs). Virtually nothing is known about the impact of immigration on wages, income, and employment in developing countries. Two recent studies report different results. Gindling (2009) studies the impact of Nicaraguan immigrants on earnings, inequality, and poverty in Costa Rica. In this case, Nicaraguan immigrants have lower skill levels than Costa Ricans and they tend to concentrate in low-paying industrial sectors of the economy. The inflows of low-skilled Nicaraguans have widened the gap in earnings between more educated and less educated workers. The author reports that Nicaraguans have had a significantly negative effect on the earnings of Costa Rican women at the lowest educational level. Therefore, less-qualified Nicaraguans have affected the earnings of less-qualified Costa Ricans, with a gender bias. Contrary to this finding, Facchini, Mayda and Mendola s (2011a) study of immigration to South Africa shows that the country has become an attractive destination for highly skilled workers from other African countries. The authors report that today s migrants to South Africa are at least as educated as their native counterparts, with a very strong presence at the very top of the educational attainment scale. As a result, the authors report a negative impact of immigration on the employment levels of more highly skilled natives, and in particular, of individuals who have completed a secondary education and, even more strongly so, of individuals who have completed a college education (2011a, p. 19). Thus, South Africa is a case of significant immigrant inflows, with highly educated foreign individuals at the very top of the skill distribution who appear to have impaired the employment prospects of skilled South Africans. To the best of our knowledge, the impact of immigrants on Mexican labor markets has not been explored. 4 Whereas these two articles provide evidence of the impact of immigrants on local labor markets, they do not provide information about how these outcomes shape the attitudes of natives toward immigrants in the destination countries. Note that the cases of Costa Rica and South Africa are two different stories, with different skill relativities between immigrants and natives, even though both are middle-income countries experiencing South South immigration. Yet in Costa Rica we should expect low-skilled natives (especially women) to be anti-immigration whereas in South Africa we would anticipate highly skilled natives opposing immigration. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of survey data about immigration policy and immigrants in emerging and developing countries (Ceobanu and Escandell 2010). This is surprising and unjustified given that about 50 percent of migrants move South South and that, therefore, immigration is major issue in some developing regions (Ratha and Shaw 2007). Facchini, Mayda and Mendola (2011b) have started to fill this gap using three rounds of the WVS in South Africa, where they find that the labor-market channel does not play an important role in 4 Even as important an issue as the effect of emigration on the Mexican labor market has received barely any attention. In a recent paper, Misha (2007: 181) finds that emigration to the United States between 1970 and 2000 has caused the wages of the average Mexican worker to increase by about 8 percent. Moreover, it is the more educated natives (those with years of schooling) who benefit most from emigration. Thus, emigration seems to be contributing to increasing wage inequality in Mexico. 6

7 forming public preferences about immigration, despite the impact of immigrants on local labor markets. As we show below, our findings for Mexico suggest the same. 2. Contemporary Immigration to Mexico According to economic theory, natives who share the same qualifications as immigrants should oppose immigration. The reverse applies to those natives with different qualifications. For this reason, research testing the labor-market competition hypothesis must start with a review of the skill levels and occupations of migrants arriving in destination countries. Who migrates to Mexico? As we mentioned before, immigration to developing countries is an unexplored topic and hardly any comparable cross-national data is available. This applies to Mexico, where another complicating factor is that the interest in immigration is overshadowed by the magnitude of the emigration phenomenon. As we show below, the character of Mexico as a country of emigration profoundly shapes who the immigrants to Mexico are. According to the 2010 Census, more than 70 percent of the foreigners who live in Mexico report having been born in the U.S. Yet more than 70 percent of those that declare having been born in the U.S. are children under 15 years old living in families whose other members identify themselves as Mexicans (Cordero 2010). More than one third of those children live in municipalities located on the northern Mexican border, and another third live in high-intensity migration states. The other well-known peculiarity of this group is that it includes a voluminous number of highly mobile pensioners who do not register as legal immigrants, maintaining a bi-national life. After US citizens, the two largest immigrant groups are Guatemalans and Spaniards. However, their presence is six times smaller than that of Americans, who form the largest group even adjusted for children aged under 15. Once the data are cleaned, 50 percent of the immigrants fall in the yearold range. Taken as group, immigrants to Mexico resemble the kind of pattern anticipated in Mayda (2006): on average, immigrants are more qualified than natives. Among those aged 25 years or more, 53 percent have 13 years or more of education. Between 80 percent and 85 percent have finished secondary school, and 42 percent have a college education or more. The former figures contrast with Mexicans, of whom only 12 percent have a college education or more. Given this educational structure, it is not surprising that among those immigrants aged 16 years or more 37 percent occupy positions as managers or professionals and 15 percent work as technicians or in administration. According to the National Statistics Office (INEGI), a high 65.7 percent of immigrants work in the service sector. A closer examination of the two main groups of immigrants (U.S. citizens and Guatemalans) gives us a better view of the complexity of immigration to Mexico. Unlike immigrants as a whole, and contrary to what might be expected, those who report having been born in the U.S. exhibit medium levels of educational attainment. Thirty-seven percent have a secondary education at most. Moreover, according to the Census 2000, six out of ten do not participate in paid activities. These figures are likely related to two factors. First, a considerable number of pensioners, not all of them legally registered, do not participate in the labor market. Second, the medium educational attainment among those aged 16 years or more partly reflects the fact that those U.S. citizens with Mexican origins were linked to the Bracero Program ( ). U.S. citizens perform a wide range of activities. The Census reveals several interesting facts. The occupational structure of U.S. citizens living in Mexico City resembles the occupational structure of the overall immigrant community: professionals and managers constitute the highest percentage (22 percent). However, only 9 percent of total U.S. citizens living in Mexico are professionals and managers. Overall, U.S. citizens in Mexico present quite peculiar features inextricably related to the long history of Mexico U.S. mass 7

8 emigration: (1) more than half of these citizens are children aged under 15; (2) their educational attainment and therefore their occupational structure show greater variability; and (3) they present lower levels of labor-market participation than South Americans and European immigrants do. Guatemalan immigrants to Mexico are a peculiar group, too. A high percentage maintain a bi-national life around the southern border. As could be expected, immigrants from Guatemala present very low qualifications. Thirty-nine percent of those aged 25 years or more have completed primary school and another 39 percent cannot read or write. The proportion of those with secondary education or more is only 12 percent (Paredes 2009). Unlike other groups of immigrants, a high percentage of Guatemalans are employed in agriculture (30 percent) and another 30 percent report themselves as self-employed, very likely in the informal sector. On the whole, close to 80 percent of immigrants of this nationality work in low-skilled employment, half of them in agriculture. Guatemalan immigrants are concentrated in the southern state of Chiapas. Only 5 percent of Guatemalans work as professionals and technicians. Finally, Guatemalans are the group with the highest proportion of individuals of all foreigners resident in Mexico speaking an indigeneous language. With this overall picture in mind, we can start hypothesizing about how fears of labormarket competition may shape the attitudes of Mexicans toward immigrants. Our working hypotheses to test labor-market competition concerns are the following: Hypothesis 1 (education): Given that the average immigrant to Mexico is more skilled than the average native, we expect more educated natives to hold worse opinions about immigration and to favour more restrictive immigration than less educated natives do. (This is an interesting contrast with what we would expect in advanced economies.) Roughly, we should observe this same pattern concerning U.S. immigrants in Mexico but the reverse in the case of Guatemalans. Hypothesis 2 (labor market status): We expect natives in the labor market to have worse opinions of immigrants than those that are not active in the labor market and therefore are not competing with immigrants. Hypothesis 3 (occupation): Given that the average immigrant to Mexico is overrepresented in highly skilled occupations, we expect natives working in highly skilled occupations to have worse opinions about immigrants and favor more restrictive immigration than those working in low-skilled occupations. This should not apply to Guatemalans. Hypothesis 4 (subjective economic situation): We expect individuals who judge their own economic situation as positively to have less fear of labor-market competition. Accordingly, they should have better opinions about immigrants and favour restrictive immigration less than those that do so judge their economic situation. Hypothesis 5 (contribution): Respondents who consider that immigrants make a positive contribution to the economy should hold better opinions of (all types) of immigrants and also to consider that they are few in number. When evaluating the labor-market competition hypothesis in Mexico, a possibility that we have to keep in mind is that immigrants to Mexico are few to actually threaten the wages or job prospects of Mexicans. In other words, in the Mexican case so-called factor price insensitivity may be a real possibility. We also have to consider that immigrants tend to be concentrated geographically and that, therefore, fears of labor-market competition may be felt only by respondents residing in certain locations (Scheve and Slaughter 2001). We control for this possibility. 3. Non-economic Concerns: Xenophobia, Xenophilia and Attitudes toward Immigrants 8

9 As we mentioned in the introduction, Mexico was never a country of immigration. The country received just 3 percent of the transatlantic flows of immigrants who arrived in Latin America at the turn of the 20th century (Salazar 2006). Even in the most permissive and liberal periods, immigrants never made up more than 1 percent of the population (Cordero 2010). And although immigration policy was biased toward attracting highly skilled individuals (prominently male) of west European and American origin, Mexico never attracted them in high numbers (González Navarro 1993; Salazar 2010). The history of Mexican immigration has been well documented by historians (Vázquez 1970; González 1993; Florescano 2002; Basave 2002; Knight 1994 Meyer 2006; Salazar 2010; Yankelevich 2011). Scholars usually distinguish three periods. The first period coincides with General Porfirio Díaz s rule ( ). This was a period of openness and proactive policies to attract immigrants. However, despite immigrant-friendly legislation, few immigrants arrived. The second period comprises the post-revolutionary years ( ) in which hostility toward foreigners became evident, especially regarding particular groups and nationalities. The third period runs from 1974 roughly to In this period restrictions were retained, but responded to different motives than in the decades after the revolution. In 2011 a new Population Law was enacted with the goal of reconciling the demands that the Mexican government makes as a source country with its obligations as a country of immigration and transmigration particularly, the obligation to protect the integrity of Central American immigrants and transmigrants to the United States. We next briefly review these three epochs. During the first period, under the leadership of General Díaz, a policy of openness toward international capital, foreign investment, and immigration was adopted. This policy responded to the demands of businessmen in the North, who needed low-skilled labor to work in railway construction, mining, and farming. As a result, Chinese immigrants arrived from However, they did not turn out to be the type of immigrant that was expected (they were few in number, were not considered to represent an improvement in terms of racial mixing, and were regarded as a potential health threat). The Population Law of 1908 explicitly restricted Chinese immigration on health grounds. As for immigrants from other nationalities, predominantly Americans and Spaniards, they soon came to be distrusted because of their economic success, their favorable treatment by the regime, and their political influence. This resentment permeated attitudes toward immigrants during the revolutionary and postrevolutionary period, which was marked by a strongly nationalistic and xenophobic immigration policy. During the post-revolutionary decades, economic and social nationalism prevailed under the Partido de la Revolución Institucional (PRI). The 1926 Migration Law incorporated restrictions that permitted immigration only when justified by labor scarcity. Implicitly, the idea was to avoid the arrival of particular nationalities (especially Chinese and Japanese immigrants). Still, the belief persisted that Mexico was an unpopulated country with abundant resources waiting to be exploited, for which immigrants were needed. The 1936 Population Law made explicit two underlying concerns. First, immigrants were welcome as long they did not compete with Mexicans for jobs. Second, as part of a national mestizaje (mixing) project of racial and cultural assimilation promoted by Mexican elites, immigrants should contribute to ethnic mixing and to the whitening of indigenous populations. This entailed a policy that was openly xenophobic toward immigrants of Asian, African, Jewish, and Arab origin, and welcoming toward west Europeans and Americans (Basave 2002; Salazar 2006; Yankelevich 2011). 5 5 This restrictive policy was compatible with the selective refugee policy under presidents Lázaro Cárdenas ( ) and Manuel Ávila Camacho ( ). Of the refugee groups that arrived, the 9

10 The 1947 Population Law was a turning point in population and immigration policy. From that moment, the emphasis shifted to populating the country with Mexicans. A population and education policy that encouraged fertility was instrumental in achieving phenomenal rates of population growth. Up to 1970, a period of economic development characterized by rapid growth, rapid industrialization, urbanization, an active birth policy and reductions in mortality translated into annual rates of population growth of 3.5 percent on average. The development model that resulted from the nationalist ideology of the post-revolutionary period left a secondary role for immigration. Article 7 of the Population Law stipulated that the collective immigration of healthy foreigners, with good behaviour and that can be easily assimilated to our environment and beneficial for the race and for the economy will be facilitated. Finally, the period begins and ends with two further population laws. The 1974 Law coincides with the decline of the industrialization model that characterized the previous period. Demographic control emerged as a priority. Only highly qualified immigrants (technicians, scientists, managers) were welcome. As Article 32 put it, immigrants should be useful elements for the country and have the necessary income for their subsistence. The new Law retained the emphasis on the protection of employment for Mexicans, but it watered down concerns about assimilation and foreigners cultural identity. 6 It is impossible to understand this highly selective stance toward the arrival of foreigners without taking into account the role of revolutionary nationalism in shaping the nationbuilding process. Indeed, this process had as its cornerstone the reaffirmation of the country against the intervention of successive foreign powers, first the Spanish empire, then the French empire and of course the United States, to which half the national territory was lost in This strong nationalist sentiment first took root in the 19th century among the creole elite that secured Mexico s independence from Spain. The sentiment spread to the people at large in the 20th century, fed by the Mexican Revolution and the social, education, and economic policies of the leftist PRI. Interestingly, whereas in many developed societies (especially in European democracies) right and far-right parties and associations are the most forceful opponents of immigration (Fetzer 2000; Pardos-Prado 2011), in Mexico leftist parties and organizations have historically been highly nationalistic and intolerant of foreign influence. Proximity to the United States and the strong asymmetry of power between the two neighbours, as well as traumatic instances of past intervention, have fed a nationalistic sentiment that is protective towards the national territory and natural resources, and exclusionary when it comes to potential foreign intervention in national political affairs. Probably, the high points of this sentiment were the nationalization of the oil industry in 1936 and the consecration in the Mexican Constitution of the prohibition of foreign intervention in domestic politics the famous Article 33 (Florescano 2002; Knight 1994; Meyer 2006; Yankelevich 2011). Immigration is thus regarded as a national security issue. 20,000 Spanish republicans who fled the Spanish civil war constitute the most prominent, visible, and researched instance (Lida 2006; Salazar 2006; Pla 2006; Cobo 2010; Palma 2008). 6 In 2011, a new Migration Law was discussed at the initiative of the rightist Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN). From the point of view of immigration policy, there are no major changes: highly qualified immigrants are particularly welcome, while the procedures for acquiring the status of legal immigrant and to obtain Mexican citizenship have been simplified. In the new Population Law, the major changes have been made in the Sanctions chapter, aiming to align the demands that Mexican authorities make with respect to the treatment of Mexican emigrants with those made for immigrants and transmigrants in Mexico. The newly approved Migration Law does not repeal the earlier Population Law. In general terms, it recognizes the vulnerability of transmigration groups in Mexico, preventing authorities about their protection; it decriminalizes the status of illegal immigrants. 10

11 Despite the increasing integration of Mexico in the world economy, and specifically with the United States after the signature of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, nationalistic traits are surprisingly persistent, as illustrated by some examples. According to the 2010 survey Mexico, The Americas, and the World, barely half of respondents believe that the arrival of foreign ideas and habits is a good thing. Only one in three believes that resident foreigners are few in number. A majority of Mexicans demand political and social rights for Mexican emigrants that they are not so willing to grant to immigrants. 7 Foreigners who become naturalized Mexicans face constitutional restrictions in occupying political and other public positions. So far, these restrictions have enjoyed overwhelming popular support. Seventy-three percent of respondents are against allowing a naturalized foreigner to be senator or a member of parliament. The figure rises to 80 percent for a naturalized foreigner becoming president. Interestingly, descriptive analysis finds no differences in these opinions by gender, age, or education. Economic nationalism still enjoys very good health with a high 62 percent of respondents against allowing foreign investment in the oil industry. 8 Mexican national pride does not resemble any kind of innocuous, noncompetitive patriotism but seems closer to a defensive nationalism that feeds strong prejudice against immigrants (De Figueiredo and Elkins 2003). 9 When analyzed from a historical perspective, ethnocentric and nationalist concerns have been central to the design of immigration policy in Mexico. Although the descriptive data suggests that these traits are still alive, in the empirical section we test whether they still have leverage in shaping views about different groups of immigrants. Accordingly, we derive the following testable hypotheses concerning non-material interests: Hypothesis 6 (nationalism): Respondents who claim to have a strong national pride are expected to have worse opinion of (all groups) of immigrants and more restrictionist immigration preferences. Hypothesis 7 (cosmopolitanism): Respondents who are positive about the arrival of new ideas and customs from abroad are expected to have a better opinion of (all groups) of immigrants and to be more likely to think that there are few immigrants in Mexico. Hypothesis 8 (ideology): Unlike in advanced countries, respondents who place themselves toward the right of the ideological spectrum are expected to have better opinions about and to favour less restrictive immigration policies that those who identify themselves as leftists. 7 For instance, 80 percent of respondents agree that Mexican emigrants should be given voting rights in their countries of residence, but the figure falls to 61 percent when it comes to granting voting rights to foreigners in Mexico (González et al. 2011). 8 Economic nationalism has been waning but signs of it still clearly persist. For instance, the Federal Labor Law (1970) sets an upper limit of 10 percent on the share of foreigners that can be employed in a Mexican firm (art. 7). Top executives and general managers are excluded from this regulation. 9 The components shaping Mexican national pride should be the object of close scrutiny. De Figueiredo and Elkins (2003) distinguish two sides to national pride: patriotism and nationalism. Patriots are noncompetitive and their pride is fed by their country s political and economic achievements. In contrast, nationalists reaffirm their attachment to the nation by appealing to the defense of national interests and national sovereignty, and claiming superiority. The authors find that xenophobia is practiced by nationalists but not by patriots. Descriptive data suggests that in Mexico national pride is fed by nationalistic rather than patriotic feelings: a majority of Mexicans declare that they are proud of being Mexican just because they have been born in the country and for cultural reasons. But a majority is dissatisfied with the country s economic achievements and the functioning of its political institutions (González et al 2011). 11

12 Hypothesis 9 (security): Fears of invasion and intervention have no doubt shaped immigration restrictions over time. At the present time, security fears are related to the presence of criminal groups that prey on migrants on the southern and the northern borders. Consequently, respondents who consider immigrants as a security threat will have worse opinion of them and will be less likely to think that there are few immigrants in Mexico. If fears of labor-market competition cannot explain attitudes toward immigrants, then nationalistic feelings and fears, ethnocentrism and/or security concerns may explain why Mexico s immigration policy has been and continues to be so restrictive. We next test these two sets of hypotheses. 4. Data and Models We examined a recent data set: the survey Mexico, the Americas and the World ( Conducted every two years, this is a survey of opinion of both public and leaders on foreign affairs in Mexico and other Latin American countries. In its 2010 edition, the survey for the first time included an important set of questions about emigration and immigration. 10 The questionnaire was distributed in person to a national population sample of 2,400 Mexicans of 18 or more years of age from September 27 th to October 20 th, As mentioned before, there are very few cross-national surveys with which to study attitudes toward immigrants in developing countries. This survey is superior to any other survey resource in that it contains questions about immigrants of different nationalities. This allows a detailed test both of potential group xenophobia and xenophilia and of labor market competition. For our dependent variables, we selected four questions that reflect the attitudes and opinions of Mexicans about immigration policy and about different groups of foreigners living in the country. First, to capture citizens preferences about immigration policy, we used as a proxy respondent s opinions concerning the number of foreigners living in Mexico (NUMBER). We assumed that those individuals who think that there are too many foreigners or that the number of foreigners is about right have restrictive immigration policy preferences, that is, they do not want immigration restrictions to be relaxed. In contrast, respondents who answer that there are few foreigners living in Mexico would prefer a more liberal immigration policy. 11 A value of 1 is given to those thinking that there are too few foreigners. About one third of respondents think that there are indeed too few foreigners living in Mexico. 12 On the one hand, we intended to capture the attitudes toward immigration policy. On the other hand, we wanted to explore the opinion that Mexicans have about immigrants already living in the country. Therefore, our second dependent variable refers to views about 10 The survey was administered by national teams in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. Unfortunately, the questionnaires are not homogeneous (Brazil did not include questions concerning immigration and Colombia did not include all of the questions). For this reason, and given the very different immigration histories and contemporary patterns, we chose to analyze the Mexican case in depth. 11 The question asked: Regarding the number of foreigners living in Mexico, do you think. We recoded the answers as follows: people answering There are too many and The number is about right were coded as 0; and people answering There are too few we coded as The Mexican case is not very different from the other countries included in the regional survey The Mexico, the Americas and The World. In Colombia and Peru more than 30 percent of respondents think that there are too few foreigners living in their countries. In Ecuador, only 19 percent of the population have the same opinion, and 63 percent think there are too many foreigners. 12

13 immigrants already living in the country (OPINION). A five-category variable ranges from very bad (1) opinion to very good (5) opinion. 13 It is interesting to see that the percentage of respondents holding a bad opinion of Americans (19.8) is greater than the percentage holding a bad opinion of immigrants in general (10.7). The figure is even worse for Guatemalans (28.5). Summary statistics for all dependent and independent variables are reported in Table A1 in the Appendix. Table. 1. Opinions about Immigrants Living in Mexico *** Table 1 *** Recall that we hypothesize that respondents evaluate immigration policy and immigrants differently depending on how threatened they feel in relation to their labor market prospects. This in turn depends on their skills and on the skills of immigrants. Even though the survey did not include a specific question about attitudes toward high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants, we used the opinions of respondents about Americans and Guatemalans to capture the fact that Mexicans may hold different opinions about different nationalities depending on their qualifications, skills and ethnic traits. Based on the discussion above, we use the respondents opinions about Americans (AMERICANS) as a proxy for attitudes toward (relatively) high-skilled immigrants and opinions about Guatemalans (GUATEMALANS) as a proxy for attitudes toward low-skilled immigrants. As before, these are categorical variables that range from 1 (very bad opinion) to 5 (very good opinion). 14 Given that NUMBER is a binary dependent variable, we estimate a set of probit models. For the five-category OPINION, AMERICANS and GUATEMALANS variables, we use OLS. 15 All estimations have been weighted to account for sex, age, and regional post-stratification. For the explanatory variables, to test the labor-market competition hypothesis, we followed recent works on this topic (Hainmueller and Hiscox 2007, 2010; Mayda 2006; Scheve and Slaughter 2001). First, we used education as a measure of individual qualifications. We employed two indicators of education. The first measure is YEARS OF EDUCATION. This variable counts the total number of years of respondents completed formal education. The second variable is educational attainment (EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT). This is a categorical variable of the highest level of education attained by 13 The precise question was In general, what is your opinion of foreigners living in Mexico? Is it very good, good, bad or very bad? 14 These two variables were obtained from the same question: Now please tell me your opinion about the following groups of foreigners who live in Mexico. Is it very good, good, bad or very bad? The interviewer lists different groups, including Americans and Guatemalans. 15 We dichotomized these variables and ran probit models too. Our main substantive results did not change. These results are available upon request from the authors. 13

14 respondents under the Mexican system. 16 In Table 1, model 5, we introduced this variable in the form of separate dummies, keeping the no education category as the baseline. In line with the recent literature, we used alternative measures of labor-market competition and individual skill levels. First, we split the total sample into two subsamples reflecting respondents employment status. One subsample contains respondents who are in the workforce. The other subsample contains individuals who are outside the workforce: students, the disabled, and pensioners. 17 In theory, the former are more vulnerable to labormarket competition and, therefore, they should exhibit more restrictionist attitudes. Second, we used a categorical variable of occupations in order to examine whether fears of labormarket competition depend on occupation rather than on overall qualifications. Given that a good number of immigrants work as managers and professionals, we constructed a dichotomous variable controlling for professionals versus other occupations (PROFESSIONALS). Also, we examined the relevance of different respondents occupations, controlling for a battery of dichotomous measures of occupation: skilled workers, manual workers, agriculture workers, self-employed workers, domestic workers, and others. With these variables we were able to estimate whether respondents occupations have any leverage in explaining attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy. In addition, we included respondent s opinions about whether foreigners contribute to the national economy (CONTRIBUTION) 18 and respondents subjective INCOME (respondents assessment of 16 Both indicators are constructed from the question What is your level or highest grade of schooling? The first indicator is simply the self-reported years in school. The second is a categorical variable coded as follows: 0 mean no education ; 1 means primary school ; 2 means secondary school ; 3 means high school or technical college ; 4 means university ; and 5 means postgraduate studies. Given that the results do not change substantively, we employed YEARS OF EDUCATION in Tables 2 and In order to divide the sample, we asked the question What was your main activity last week? and created a dichotomous variable, where 1 = people who answer work, have work, but didn t work (vacations, sick, leave or illness) and unemployed (not working but looking) ; and 0 = people who answer home, student, retired or pensioner, permanently disabled and other. In that sense, we consider those assigned with 1 as people competing in the labor market, and those assigned with 0 as people outside the labor market. 18 With the intention of contrasting the individual answers to different categories of answers, the survey design splits the national sample into two subsamples. However, we use the whole sample incorporating the two questions in one variable. Half of the respondents were asked: In general, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements, regarding foreigners living in Mexico? Foreigners who live in Mexico contribute to the Mexican economy. Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree? In this case, we coded the answer as follow: 0 = strongly disagree and somewhat disagree ; 1 = somewhat agree and strongly agree. The other half were asked: For our next question we will be using this card. On it there is a set of steps numbered 1 to 7 [1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree]. You can pick any step to indicate your opinion. In general, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements regarding foreigners living in Mexico? Foreigners who live in Mexico contribute to Mexican economy. In this case we dichotomized the answers as follow: 1, 2, and 3 into 0 (meaning disagree); 4, 5, 6 and 7 into 1 (meaning agree). We test whether there are differences in distribution in the two subsamples, and the results shown that, in standardized answers between 0 and 1, the two groups have a very similar mean. 14