Existing studies on negative attitudes towards immigrants (compare Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014) do not adequately take into consideration the fact that not all occupations are equally exposed to economic competition with foreigners.
Here we use data from the Swiss Household Panel and show that there is a negative association between the share of foreigners in one’s occupation and positive attitudes to equal opportunities for foreigners. At the same time, we observe a positive association between the share of recently arrived foreigners and positives attitudes to equal opportunities. This suggests that workers are at the same time wary of competition with foreigners and welcome their contribution to overcome the shortage of human resources. By examining the role of the occupational share of foreigners, this paper is able to ascertain the importance of labour force competition alongside sociotropic concerns and fears of cultural threat well-established in the literature.
