Community Wealth Shapes Opposition to Sub‑Saharan Migrants in Morocco

The study asks why citizens in the Middle East and North Africa express stronger opposition to some migrant groups—especially sub‑Saharan African migrants—and how local context shapes which perceived threats matter.

📋 A National Survey of 2,700 Moroccan Citizens

A nationally representative survey of 2,700 native Moroccan citizens provides the empirical foundation. The survey measures opposition to different migrant subtypes and respondents' perceptions of cultural, economic, and security threats.

🔎 Which Explanations Were Tested

• Classic threat arguments derived from Western Europe are evaluated: cultural threat, economic/job competition, and security concerns.
• A novel focus is community-level postmaterialism—defined here as a local preoccupation with cultural, identity, and security-based concerns—rather than treating postmaterialism only as an individual trait.

📈 Key Findings

• Broad support for traditional threat theories: perceived cultural, economic, and security threats are associated with greater opposition to certain migrant groups, including sub‑Saharan African migrants.
• Crucially, the relative importance of these threats varies across communities (subnational level) according to community-level postmaterialism:
• In higher-development communities where many citizens live in European-style conditions, community-level postmaterialism predicts stronger opposition to sub‑Saharan African migrants driven by cultural, identity, and security concerns.
• In lower-development communities where citizens do not live in European-style conditions, greater opposition to sub‑Saharan African migrants is driven primarily by economic concerns, notably job competition.
• The interaction between individual circumstances and the community context conditions which perceived threats become more or less salient in predicting anti-migrant attitudes.

🌍 Why This Matters

Findings demonstrate that explanations developed in Western European contexts do apply in the MENA region, but their explanatory power depends on local community characteristics. Highlighting postmaterialism at the community level advances understanding of when cultural versus economic threat narratives will dominate public attitudes toward migrants, with implications for policy debates and comparative migration research.