Migrating to Stay or Commuting to Work? How Fairness Perceptions and Exposure Shape Attitudes Toward Labor Migration

Abstract

Existing literature posits that attitudes toward immigration are shaped by the impact of migrants on native workers' wages and employment, as well as by various other material, cultural, and social concerns. However, empirically disentangling these influences can be challenging. By taking advantage of the fact that different types of labor migrants, namely either taking residence and working in a country or commuting over an international border, equally affect labor market competition but have different cultural and social implications, we strive to identify the effect of labor migration on attitudes toward migration. We empirically investigate this phenomenon using two experiments embedded within a representative survey in Switzerland, one priming and one conjoint experiment. Results robustly show that natives evaluate resident foreigners more positively than cross-border commuters and that levels of exposure and fairness aspects explain this preference.