engleski

(Un)Welcome to the EU: Attitudes towards Immigrant Workers and Asylum Seekers within the New EU Border Population

Croatia’s admittance to the EU has brought new challenges and issues in researching and analysing not only migration flows and trends but also attitudes towards real and potential newcomers. Therefore the aim of this paper is to explore attitudes of the residents of the two most eastern Croatian counties towards two distinct categories of newcomers: immigrant workers and asylum seekers. The research was conducted shortly after Croatia’s entry into the EU, in September 2013, and the presented data are a part of a larger survey which included various migration and ethnicity issues. The survey was applied on a convenience sample of 1110 adult respondents in two counties: Osječko-baranjska and Vukovarsko- srijemska, representing the new external borderlands of the EU. The data were analysed in a series of multivariate procedures such as factor and regression analyses. The main results indicate significant perceptions of immigrant workers within the dimension of cultural threat along with the expression of a considerable degree of social distance towards them. Further on, the asylum seekers are often perceived as a security and economic threat. The socio-demographic profiles of respondents who express negative or positive attitudes towards asylum seekers and immigrant workers, and significant associations between attitudes towards selected groups will be explored. Finally, the results will be compared to other relevant research conducted before Croatia’s admittance to the EU, including the discussion of tendencies observed.

immigrant workers ; asylum seekers ; attitudes ; threat perception ; eastern Croatia

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