The impact of a sudden asylum seeker influx on host attitudes: Quasi-experimental evidence from South Korea

How native residents, in response to asylum seekers’ inflows, change their attitudes and perceptions toward non-natives has recently become a topic of intense research. However, most previous studies have focused exclusively on Western countries. The present study offers the first evidence on this issue from an East Asian context, specifically investigating South Korea , which has not traditionally been a destination for forcibly displaced individuals (excluding North Korean defectors). For causal evidence, this paper exploits the sudden influx of Yemeni asylum seekers to Jeju Island in South Korea, which only impacted the island ‘locally’—due to the region’s unique visa-exemption policy and the government’s immediate restrictions on the asylum seekers’ post-arrival cross-region movement off the island. Furthermore, the geographic feature of the island eliminates spill-over concerns, providing a unique, ideal quasi-experimental setting. The difference-in-differences estimates suggest that the abrupt influx of asylum seekers decreased host residents’ multicultural acceptance and negatively affected their attitudes and perceptions toward non-natives. Notably, strong heterogeneity seems to exist, depending on hosts’ economic (e.g., education, income, employment status) and non-economic (e.g., age, multicultural education) factors. This study extends its examination to various other outcomes, such as neighborhood preference and national pride. • This study presents the first evidence from an East Asian context, specifically South Korea, on how native residents adjust their attitudes and perceptions toward non-natives in response to sudden inflows of asylum seekers. • This study provides causal evidence by analyzing the unexpected influx of Yemeni asylum seekers to Jeju Island in South Korea, which only impacted the island locally—due to the island’s unique visa-exemption policy and the government’s prompt restrictions on the asylum seekers’ movement beyond the island. • The geographic feature of the island eliminates spill-over concerns, creating a unique, ideal quasi-experimental setting for applying the difference-in-differences method. • South Korea’s National Multicultural Acceptability Survey, a government-collected, population-representative dataset with extensive micro-level detail, is used for the empirical analysis. • The difference-in-differences estimates suggest that the abrupt influx of asylum seekers decreased host residents’ multicultural acceptance and negatively affected their attitudes and perceptions toward non-natives.