Conferences

In this paper we examine whether ethnic-targeting increases opposition to government efforts to assist ethnic minorities on the Dutch job market. Most empirical studies on opposition to ethnic or racial policies have been carried out against the background of America’s race relations. Therefore, we derive our hypotheses from American studies on opposition to affirmative action. These studies show that Whites evaluate race-targeted policies more negatively than parallel income-targeted policies. Assessing the effects of ethnic-targeting is best done by analyzing opinion about parallel ethnic-targeted and non-ethnic targeted policy. Thus, taking advantage of a computer-assisted survey experiment, we analyze the opposition of the Dutch majority towards ethnic-targeted and income-targeted employment policy. We examine whether employment policy in the Netherlands is less opposed to when the policy reaches beyond ethnic minorities. In addition, we examine to what extent effects of self-interest, ethnic group threat and political ideology on opinion about employment policy are contingent upon target-group.

We applied data from round 2005 of the Dutch, cross-sectional representative survey ‘Social and Cultural Developments in the Netherlands’. While American studies show low levels of support for affirmative action policies, almost ninety percent of the Dutch majority members support ethnic-targeted employment policy. Moreover, we found no significant differences between opposition to income-targeted and ethnic-targeted employment policy among members of the Dutch majority. The effects of political ideology on opposition to employment policy were not contingent upon target-group. In contrast, we did find stronger (positive) effects of personal ethnic threat and ethnic group threat on opposition to ethnic policy – as compared to opposition to income policy. Perceived group threat from ethnic minorities was more consequential for opposition to ethnic policy than perceived personal threat from ethnic minorities. In the discussion a comparison is made between Dutch and American welfare policies.

Keywords: survey-based experiment, interethnic attitudes, affirmative action