The puzzling landscape of European citizens’ policy preferences on labour migration

Do EU citizens’ preferences on labour migration policies vary across countries and years according to individual socio-demographic characteristics? Do they follow respondents’ personal experience of the national economic situation or are they ideologically driven by political orientations and general attitudes towards immigrations? These questions have direct implications not just for understanding the evolution of opinions about migration policies across Europe but also for actual policy-making. Through descriptive and multivariate analysis of the rich dataset produced over four editions (2008-2011) of the international comparative poll Transatlantic Trends on Immigration (TTI), this article aims to understand which type of immigration policy approach is preferred by European citizens, how polarized are such preferences and which role is played, by individual variables in shaping them. Our ultimate goal is to throw new light on the relationship between public opinions and migration policy-making.