Migrants, Native-Born See Areas as Good for Migrants

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Instead of seeing their communities as worse places for migrants to live amid the recent backlash against them in different parts of the world, Gallup surveys show that worldwide, migrants themselves have actually become more likely to see their communities as good places for migrants.

And what's more, native-born residents have also become more likely to see their communities the same way -- although they remain less likely to feel this way than migrants do.

Notably, opinions among residents at the epicenter of some of the recent backlash against migrants haven't changed significantly in the past decade. Migrants and the native-born in Northern America, the European Union and Australia/New Zealand remained among the most likely in the world to say that their communities are good places for migrants.

However, in several other regions, there were big changes -- positive as well as negative.

	Native-born	Change since 2010	Migrants	Change since 2010
	%	pct. pts.	%	pct. pts.
Australia/New Zealand	87	+1	90	-2
Northern America	79	0	85	-5
European Union	68	+3	79	+1
Latin America and Caribbean	63	-1	74	-3
Sub-Saharan Africa	63	-1	67	-7
Non-EU Europe	62	0	66	-11
Commonwealth of Independent States	48	+5	57	+7
Middle East and North Africa	48	+9	73	+22
East Asia	45	+4	51	-9
Southeast Asia	40	+8	70	+7
South Asia	58	+25	59	+25
Gallup World Poll, 2018

Where Communities Are Better for Migrants

The biggest positive movement was in South Asia, where the percentages of migrants and the native-born who said their communities were good for migrants each increased by 25 percentage points. While barely one in three in either group saw their communities this way in 2010, solid majorities in 2018 (58% of the native-born and 59% of migrants) said their communities are good places for migrants.

Numbers were also higher for both migrants and the native-born in the Middle East and North Africa, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Southeast Asia.

Where Communities Are Worse for Migrants

A number of other regions have become less hospitable to migrants -- particularly from the vantage point of migrants themselves -- over the past decade. In sub-Saharan Africa, percentages among migrants and the native-born both headed in a negative direction, dropping the most among migrants (seven points).

There was less agreement among migrants and the native-born in non-EU countries in Europe and in East Asia, but in each of these regions, migrants were significantly less likely to see their communities as good places for migrants compared with their attitudes in 2010. In non-EU countries in Europe, the attitudes of the native-born didn't change, and in East Asia, the native-born were more likely to see their communities as good places for migrants.

Bottom Line

Even as the world has become more polarized on the issue of migration, people in most regions are at least as likely -- if not more likely -- to see their communities as good for migrants. In most parts of the world, this is true of both the native-born and migrant populations -- and particularly of migrants. The latter is a positive development, but so is the increasing agreement among both groups in a number of regions. This likely signals that the two groups are finding common ground.

The next articles in this series will look at whether these same attitudes influence people's desire to migrate to other countries.

For complete methodology and specific survey dates, please review Gallup's Country Data Set details.

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