Why Are the Elderly More Averse to Immigration When They Are More Likely to Benefit? Evidence across Countries

Abstract

Using household surveys for 25 countries over a 12-year period, this paper investigates why the elderly are more averse to open immigration policies than their younger peers. We find that the negative correlation between age and pro-immigration attitudes is mostly explained by a cohort or generational change. In fact, once we control for year of birth, the correlation between age and pro-immigration attitudes is either positive or zero in most of the countries of our sample. Under certain assumptions, our estimates suggest that aging societies will tend to become less averse to open immigration regimes over time.