Why Natives Prefer Resident Workers Over Cross‑Border Commuters

🔍 What the Study Tests

Attitudes toward immigration are often attributed to effects on native wages and employment as well as to cultural and social concerns, but these influences are difficult to separate empirically. This study uses a contrast between two types of labor migrants—those who take up residence and work in the country versus those who commute across an international border—to hold labor‑market competition constant while varying cultural and social exposure.

🧪 How This Was Tested — Representative Survey Experiments in Switzerland

• A nationally representative survey in Switzerland embedded two experiments: a priming experiment and a conjoint experiment.
• The design leverages the fact that resident migrants and cross‑border commuters equally affect local labor competition but differ in everyday social and cultural presence.

📌 Main Findings

• Natives evaluate resident foreigners more positively than cross‑border commuters.
• Differences in levels of exposure (everyday contact and presence) and in perceptions of fairness explain much of this preference.
• These results hold across both the priming and the conjoint experiments, indicating robustness to experimental approach.

🌍 Why It Matters

This approach clarifies how material and non‑material considerations jointly shape migration attitudes by isolating the social and cultural dimensions of exposure. Findings inform debates on cross‑border labor policy and integration by showing that perceived fairness and everyday exposure—not only labor‑market competition—drive public preferences about different types of workers.