이주민 증가에 따른 이민자에 대한 인식 변화 : 경제적 불평등과의 상호작용을 중심으로 [Understanding Public Attitudes toward Immigrants : the Heterogeneous Ef

The immigration level in Korea has been increasing amidst worsening individual attitudes toward immigrants. Does this mean that the increase in immigration levels leads to a negative public attitude toward immigrants? Intergroup Contact Theory supposes that a larger migrant population leads to positive attitudes: frequent contact alleviates intergroup prejudice and improves relations. This paper suggests that there can be both 'good contact' or 'bad contact' depending on local contextual characteristics, such as inequality. This paper reviews the effect of local economic inequality and local immigrant stock on public attitudes by matching the Seoul Survey dataset(2010-2017) with originally generated local economic inequality levels. With a multi-level time-series data of twenty-five local level districts, six-year spans, and 274,514 individual observations, we find that local districts with larger immigrant populations and lower inequality levels are more likely to exhibit positive attitudes, and the positive effect of the immigrant population on public attitudes diminishes as the inequality level increases. These findings suggest that the deteriorating net level of public attitudes toward immigrants is attributable to economic inequality rather than the size of the immigrant population.