Tolerance and Migration
LSCR round table session at the Congress in Ufa
A round table “Tolerance and migration” was held by the LCSR during the Fourth Russian Sociological Congress in Ufa on October, 23th. Andrey Shcherbak, a research fellow at our lab, highligted reports presented at the session.
Maria Ravlik, associate researcher of LCSR, was the first speaker within the session. She presented a report on “Cross-national analysis of factors of international migration”. Maria used United Nations definition of international immigrant which is any person who changes his or her country of usual residence for at least one year for any purpose. The dependent variable of Maria’s research was share of migrants in 2010 year in all the 179 countries that are represented in the dataset. GDP per capita, Human Development Index difference between sending and receiving countries, Human Security Index difference between sending and receiving countries, Petroleum Exporting Countries, Rule of law, Civil liberties and Political rights index, Democracy index, HDI difference, Citizenship, Common colonial relationship and Common official languages were taken as independent variables for the model.
According to the final regression model, size of population, HDI difference between sending and receiving countries, Human Security Index difference between sending and receiving countries, Rule of law and Common colonial relationship determinate share of immigrants in the country. Some dummy variables for countries were included in the survey, and Petroleum Exporting Countries were significantly different case when comparing groups of countries concerning migration flows.
Concerning the main finding of the study, it was proven that countries with high HDI attract immigrants by their potential for comfortable adaptation due to well-developed conditions in these countries, high educational standards and quality of education. Also countries with high Rule of Law index can be attractive due to their guarantees for human rights protection. Trust issues are essential in migration processes. That is why personal and social security reasons are important requirements. Countries with colonial linkages have not only common historical background but cultural links as well. It obviously helps for better adaptation in a receiving country. It is also important to mention that highly educated immigrants do not choose the same countries to migrate as low educated people do.
Andrey Shcherbak, a LCSR research fellow, presented his final report of his project “Does Culture Matter? The Impact of Tolerance on Economic Modernization in Comparative Perspective”. Andrey develops his research based on Inglehart and Welzel’s theory of cultural modernization and “creative class” concept by Richard Florida. The main data resources were the World Values Survey, World Development Indicators from the World Bank and the Worldwide Governance Indicators. 55 countries were included into the sample.
The author concluded that tolerance does have a significant impact on modernization, with gender equality being the most predictive factor and proving to be important in three groups of compared models (Index of Modernization, Innovation Index, and Investment Index). Tolerant attitudes towards homosexuality and decrease of xenophobia play less significant role.
The other important result was revealing two distinct patterns of modernization. The author called these two patterns “tolerant model” and “catching-up model”. The first model focuses on innovation, high levels of tolerance, and strong institutions, while the second includes investment, lower-level of tolerance, and weak political institutions. Author also mentioned possible practical applications of this result for policy makers.
Then Elena Prutskova, an LCSR associate researcher, presented her project on "Religiosity and tolerance of behavior that is disapproved by religions". The central research question was how religiosity influences attitudes towards behavior that is disapproved by major religions (dealing with sexuality, family and existential questions). Analysis was based on EVS data, collected in 2008. Special focus of analysis was on new forms of religiosity – believing without belonging and belonging without believing which seemed to be even more tolerant, than non-religious Europeans. Linear regressions showed that the effect of increasing tolerance in the two outlier groups is diminishing when controlled for socio-demographic variables, denomination and country group. To some extent it is mediated by higher education level, living in Scandinavian or Western European countries (with higher proportions of non-traditional religiosity and higher levels of secularization), and belonging to Protestantism. But the effect of increasing tolerance in belonging not believing and believing not belonging groups remains even when controlled for all the variables mentioned. The findings suggest that religiosity does account for some share of influence on people’s norms, values, and attitudes, but only when it is a coherent phenomenon. Elena also revealed negative relationship between religiosity and tolerance towards behavior, disapproved by religions, but the strength of this relationship differs in different groups of countries. It is highest in Southern Europe and lowest in Post-Soviet countries. Elena argued that primary religious socialization plays an important role here. Multilevel regression model shows that if an individual lives in a society where the mechanism of primary religious socialization works (relatively high % of people, who attended religious services in childhood regularly), then the negative connection between religiosity and tolerance of behavior, disapproved by major religions, is stronger.
Representatives of these groups have inconsistent attitude to religion and they more often tend to condone violations of norms prescribed by religion, than non-religious people. Strength of relationship between religiosity and tolerance significantly differs depending on a country, it indicates, that it is desirable to construct a multilevel regression. In countries with a low level of primary religious socialization (generally post-socialist states except Poland) relation between religiosity and tolerance is quite flat, meanwhile in group of countries with high level of socialization (contains mainly of Mediterranean countries, plus Poland and Ireland) a shape of dependence is more abrupt. The higher the level of primary religious socialization in a country, the stronger impact religion has on tolerance to behavior that is disapproved by religions.
Anna Nemirovskaya, a senior research fellow of LCSR, gave a talk on “Impact of quality of life on social tolerance: comparative approach”. The project addresses the problem of social tolerance in societies under “harsh”, or difficult, conditions, such as poverty, low quality of life, considerable social differentiation, political instability, state of war and other deprivation circumstances. For comparison and testing of the hypotheses, a number of variables from WVS database, as well as different global indices and national statistics have been used. The current progress reports presents regression models explaining general social tolerance in various difficult conditions. The unit of analysis is a country.
Elena Korshunova and Elena Ponosova, students at Perm national research polytechnic university, closed the session presenting their report “Prospects of transformation of migration potential of region’s youth and socioeconomic functions of migration in 21th century”.
by Andrey Shcherbak