Gender and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Europe

Abstract

Gender emerges as a key site of contestation with respect to immigrants’ integration and public presence in Europe. The recent politicization of gender and Islam in immigration debates marks an increasingly salient constructed opposition between egalitarian European values and traditional immigrant cultures. Against this background, this study investigates how gender structures attitudes toward immigrants of different economic and cultural profiles. Prior research finds that women are usually less likely to exhibit anti-immigrant attitudes than are men. Using 2014 European Social Survey data, results show that women are no less likely to hold anti-immigrant attitudes. However, in a significant reversal of traditional gender patterns, women are more likely to hold targeted anti-Muslim attitudes. Further, social trust moderates this gendered anti-Muslim effect. I interpret findings as a shift in how gender structures xenophobia resulting from the increased salience of gender ideology as a boundary-defining feature and growing demonization of Muslims as gender inegalitarian.