Explaining time trends in public opinion: Attitudes towards immigration and immigrants

Why does public opinion change over time? Much debate on this question centers on whether it is caused by the replacement of people or by individuals changing how they think. Theoretical approaches to this question have emphasized the importance of birth cohort succession, generational differences, and changing macro-economic conditions. In this article, we consider the extent to which these processes can account for changing attitudes towards immigration and immigrants. We use a new approach to the study of time trends in public opinion to analyze over 20 years of data on attitudes in Canada. This approach uses multi-level analysis to split attitudinal change into its cohort and period components. We find that most attitude change is the result of changing macro-economic conditions. In contrast, birth cohort succession has little effect. While there is modest evidence of generational differences in attitudes, these differences do not comprise a major part of the overall trend.