Effects of information about irregular migration on transit community attitudes towards migrants

Abstract

European countries use information campaigns to deter irregular migration from Africa. We present results from a field experiment conducted in a transit community in Ghana testing the effects of such campaigns on local attitudes towards migrants. Respondents were randomized into three treatment arms, the first group watched a video stressing local opportunities, the second a video emphasizing the dangers of irregular migration, while the control group did not view any video. Despite power to detect reasonably small effects, we find no significant overall effect of either treatment on attitudes. We do, however, document an indirect effect of the first treatment; information stressing local opportunities reduces migration intentions of transit community members which in turn improves attitudes towards other migrants. This shows the importance of analyzing transit community members as inhabiting two roles simultaneously, they are both local residents and potential migrants in competition with other migrants. While there was little effect of the treatments on attitudes to migrants in general, results from an embedded discrete choice experiment show that treated respondents become more critical towards unskilled migrants, a result driven by skilled respondents, suggesting that information campaigns on irregular migration may reinforce socio-economic divisions in target communities.