Support for “Replacement Migration”? Not Necessarily. Region‐Level Demographics and Attitudes Toward Immigration in Germany

ABSTRACT Does demographic decline make people more pro‐immigration? Our longitudinal, regional‐level analysis, drawing on the 1999–2021 German Socio‐Economic Panel (16 federal states, 96 planning regions), suggests that people become more favorable to immigration as regional birth rates fall and aging indicators worsen. While this result would support the logic of replacement migration, additional analyses accounting for the role of the natives‐foreigners balance in driving the relationship between birth rates and immigration attitudes cast doubt on this interpretation, giving credence to group conflict theory.