"Financially literate" likely to be positive on UK immigration

Research regarding immigration has been conducted by the British Election Study (BES); an academic group that has analysed Britain's electoral behaviour since 1964. In the survey, the BES found that the more "financially literate" a person is, the more positive their views on immigration are likely to be.


The survey was taken by up to 30,000 people. BES discovered that the more people correctly understood inflation, interest rates and risk diversification the more likely they were to have a positive stance on immigration and its cultural and economic benefits.


Dr George Panos and Prof Robert E. Wright undertook the survey to challenge the persistent negative attitude towards immigrants. This followed a recent 2014 study by economists at University College London, which found that immigrants put in more into the economhy through taxes than they take out in benefits and welfare support.


Panos and Wright reasoned that to fully understand the role immigrants play in the modern UK economy, a considerable knowledge of economics, finance, and immigrants' role in the labour market would be necessary. They concluded that the more "financially literate" a person is, the more likely their attitudes towards immigration would be "positive".


Some of the questions asked included, "Do you think that immigration undermines or enriches Britain's cultural life?' and "Do you think immigration is bad or good for the economy?"


Even after factoring in user control variables such as gender, age, political orientation (left-right), income, and education, "financial literacy" was still shown to have the most substantial effect on participants' attitude to immigration.


The survey concluded that not only is financial literacy important, it should also be more widely known that skilled migrants contribute more to the economy than they take out coming up to the 2015 election.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html