Climate change beliefs, reasons for migration and public support for immigrants: evidence from a vignette experiment

Abstract Ongoing global conflicts and the accelerating effects of climate change are expected to intensify migration flows, underscoring the importance of understanding public attitudes toward immigrants. Research suggests that attitudes toward accepting immigrants vary depending on the reason for migration and, relatedly, their perceived deservingness. Refugees fleeing political persecution or war generally receive higher public support than economic migrants, while attitudes toward climate change-induced migration remain more ambiguous, probably partly reflecting the ambiguities surrounding this category in international law. Previous studies also suggest that some types of environmental attitudes may be related to the acceptance of climate change-induced immigrants. This study examines how climate change beliefs relate to support for admitting immigrants and whether this association varies by the reason for migration. We conducted a survey experiment with 1477 randomly selected respondents in the Czech Republic, a country with historically low levels of immigration and ethnic diversity, which recently experienced an unprecedented influx of war refugees from Ukraine. Respondents evaluated whether a hypothetical immigrant should be admitted to the country. The vignette randomly varied the stated reason for migration: no reason given, political persecution, religious discrimination, economic hardship, climate change, or war. The results indicate that support for admission was highest for migrants fleeing political or religious persecution, while climate migrants received the lowest level of support, and the gap widened among respondents who rejected anthropogenic climate change. Belief in human-caused climate change was positively associated with support for admitting immigrants in general and especially climate migrants, consistent with the deservingness logic (greater perceived need and lower perceived control) and with the idea that climate scepticism clusters with anti-immigration orientations. Findings suggest that climate beliefs may shape the perceived deservingness of migrants and that the politicisation of climate change could hinder public acceptance of people displaced by environmental factors.