Interactions between migrant race and social status in predicting acceptance of climate migrants in Norway

Bye, Hege H.; Yu, Hui; Portice, Jennie Sofia; Ogunbode, Charles A.

Abstract

An emerging stream of research documents that climate migrants are more acceptable than economic migrants to citizens in high-income countries. However, extant research has not considered migrant race, and how race, along with socioeconomic status, interact with reasons for migrating to impact the perceptions of acceptability among residents in the receiving society. We investigated the joint effects of reason for migration (economic vs. climate), race (Black vs. White), and socioeconomic status (low vs. high) on migrant acceptability judgments among a national sample of Norwegian residents (N = 1637) using a preregistered survey experiment. The results indicate that climate migrants are more acceptable to participants than economic migrants, and White migrants are preferred to Black migrants. There was also an interaction between reason for migrating, race, and social status whereby Black, low social status, and economic migrants were less accepted than any other migrant profile. Especially notable was the finding that Black climate migrants of low socioeconomic status were seen by participants as being much more acceptable than Black economic migrants of low socioeconomic status. The notion that climate and economic migrants can be meaningfully differentiated in the real world is debatable. Nonetheless, our study suggests that framing migrants’ motivation in terms of environmental influences, compared with economic motivations, has potentially major effects on migrant acceptance in receiving societies.

Citation

Bye, H. H., Yu, H., Portice, J. S., & Ogunbode, C. A. (2023). Interactions between migrant race and social status in predicting acceptance of climate migrants in Norway. Climatic Change, 176(4), Article 46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03523-2

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 26, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Apr 15, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-04
• Deposit Date: Mar 31, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 28, 2023
• Journal: Climatic Change
• Print ISSN: 0165-0009
• Electronic ISSN: 1573-1480
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 176
• Issue: 4
• Article Number: 46
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03523-2
• Keywords: Climate migrants, Climate refugees, Racial bias, Immigration
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/19002059
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-023-03523-2
• Additional Information: Received: 30 September 2022; Accepted: 26 March 2023; First Online: 15 April 2023; : ; : The Norwegian Citizen Panel deals with human subjects and follow the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). According to this, the NCP has conducted a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), which is approved by the University of Bergen. The DPIA was conducted in cooperation with what is now named Sikt–Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. The DPIA number is 118868. Participants in the panel provided written informed consent.In addition, the Scientific Committee of the Norwegian Citizen Panel reviews all questions that are to be fielded in the NCP, reviewing based on ethical issues, scientific issues, and on how the questions will impact the respondent. A separate IRB approval is not necessary in Norway, but the NCP data adheres to national and university-level ethical standards (Source: ExternalRef removed).; : Not applicable.; : The authors declare no competing interests.