From welcome culture to welcome limits? Uncovering preference changes over time for sheltering refugees in Germany

Europe recently experienced a large influx of refugees, spurring much public debate about the admission and integration of refugees and migrants into society. Previous research based on cross-sectional data found that European citizens generally favour asylum seekers with high employability, severe vulnerabilities, and Christians over Muslims. These preferences and attitudes were found to be homogeneous across countries and socio-demographic groups. Here, we do not study the general acceptance of asylum seekers, but the acceptance of refugee and migrant homes in citizens’ vicinity and how it changes over time. Based on a repeated stated choice experiment on preferences for refugee and migrant homes, we show that the initially promoted “welcome culture” towards refugees in Germany was not reflected in the views of a majority of a sample of German citizens who rather disapproved refugee homes in their vicinity. Their preferences have not changed between November 2015, the peak of “welcome...

欧洲近期迎来了大量难民涌入，引发了关于难民与移民接纳及社会融入问题的广泛公共讨论。此前基于横断面数据（cross-sectional data）的研究发现，欧洲公民普遍更倾向于接纳具有高就业能力、面临严重困境的庇护申请者（asylum seekers），且相比穆斯林更偏好基督徒。这些偏好与态度在不同国家及社会人口群体中表现出同质性。本文并非研究庇护申请者的整体接纳度，而是聚焦于公民对居住地附近难民与移民安置点的接纳态度及其随时间的变化。基于针对难民与移民安置点偏好的重复陈述性选择实验，我们发现，德国最初倡导的对难民的“欢迎文化”（welcome culture）并未在多数受访德国公民的观点中得到体现——这些公民更倾向于反对在其居住地附近设立难民安置点。他们的偏好自2015年11月（“欢迎文化”的高峰期）以来并未发生变化。