Stawarz, Nico; Müller, Michael (2019)
European Societies 22(3): 293–316
DOI: 10.1080/14616696.2019.1690159
This article analyzes how anti-immigrant attitudes shift when individuals experience changes in their subjective and objective economic situations. To do this, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP, N ≈ 14,700) and apply fixed-effects multinomial logit panel regression models as a statistical framework. The social identity approach is applied as a theoretical perspective to explain how individual incidents can lead to group-based devaluations. Our findings show almost no effect of social mobility and shifts in the household income, while more disruptive events, such as becoming unemployed, significantly increase the probability of having stronger anti-immigrant attitudes. However, the largest shift in anti-immigrant attitudes is observed when fears of a worsening economic situation increase.