The changing alignment of attitudes towards immigration and redistribution across Europe between 2002 and 2020

This paper examines the evolving relationship between attitudes toward immigration and redistribution in Europe. While much of the existing literature suggests a positive correlation between support for immigration and redistribution, recent developments—such as the rise of political parties combining anti-immigration rhetoric with pro-redistribution platforms—challenge this assumption. Moreover, little is known about how these attitudinal combinations have changed over time and how they relate to individuals’ social structural positions. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2020), we investigate how the relationship between attitudes toward immigration and redistribution has shifted across European countries, and the extent to which these shifts are anchored in the changing social stratification of political attitudes. Our results show that, in 2002, the correlation between pro-immigration and pro-redistribution attitudes was negative, but by 2020, it had shifted to near zero. This shift is mainly driven by an increase in the share of individuals who support both immigration and redistribution, especially in Northern and Western European countries since 2012. In contrast, groups rejecting both immigration and redistribution, or rejecting immigration while supporting redistribution have not substantially expanded. We further show that these changes are partly due to changing educational and occupational divides. These findings highlight the shifting relationship between the cultural and economic dimension of political conflict in Europe, and underline the importance of social structural transformations, particularly the educational expansion, in re-shaping the demand-side of political dynamics. More generally, the study calls for a stronger focus on analyzing the intersection of attitudes across different domains and on understanding how social-structural transformations shape attitudes towards immigration and support for the welfare state.