Survey on attitude towards migrants

This dataset is useful for public policy and causal analysis. In Mexico and the Dominican Republic, a survey was conducted on attitudes towards migrants. Each respondent receives one of two possible treatments (either an “emotive” or “informative” video about migrants), or is part of the placebo group (shown an unrelated video).

Motivation

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean, is an inter-governmental institution concerned with improving the quality of life across the region.

This dataset is the result of an experiment conducted in nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and published as the book A Better World for Migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean (ABWMLAC). This project is joint work between the IDB and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The data, collected in 2021, support an impact evaluation of an intervention aimed at exploring mechanisms that are effective in shifting people’s beliefs and attitudes toward migrants. The experiment was conducted in nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and consisted of two video interventions. The first video (the “informative” treatment group) aimed to correct misinformation about the impact of migration by providing accurate information about the size of the migrant population and its characteristics. The second video (the “emotive” treatment group) intended to appeal to the emotions and empathy of the local population. The control (or placebo) group was shown a video on a topic unrelated to the study.

For the Dominican Republic, there were two types of “emotive” videos: one involves a Haitian migrant while the other involves a Venezuelan migrant.

The authors also note, “The sampling strategy does not ensure a nationally representative sample. In this case, however, to identify the impact of the interventions, the sample for each country needs to be comparable, which is achieved by randomly assigning participants to the different treatment and control groups” (page 43-44, ABWMLAC).

Data

The original data is available for nine countries: Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago. Here, we provide data only for the Dominican Republic and Mexico, but you can easily download the other datasets also.

The files migrants_domrep.csv and migrants_mexico.csv are the survey responses respectively for the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Each row represents one respondent (a person) identified by the response_id variable.

• In the migrants_domrep.csv dataset, there are 3,542 rows and 56 columns.
• In the migrants_mexico.csv dataset, there are 2,432 rows and 56 columns.

The columns represent demographic characteristics of the respondent and questions in the survey. Careful: the questions in each survey are numbered slightly differently (see bottom of Variable descriptions to see which columns differ). The files migrants_dom_dictionary.csv and migrants_mex_dictionary.csv describe the questions for each respective country. Since the questions were originally in Spanish, an English translation column is provided.

Responses are also in Spanish, so you can use migrants_response_translations.csv for Spanish-to-English translations.

Data preview

migrants_domrep.csv

migrants_mexico.csv

migrants_dom_dictionary.csv

migrants_mex_dictionary.csv

migrants_response_translations.csv

Variable descriptions

Note that all question information contained below is redundant to migrants_dom_dictionary.csv and migrants_mex_dictionary.csv. The Spanish-to-English translation of responses is in migrants_response_translations.csv.

For the respondent-level files (migrants_domrep.csv and migrants_mexico.csv), below are the columns that are shared by both surveys (with minor changes to questions to reflect the country, highlighted in bold):

Variable	Description
response_id	Response ID
anio	In what year were you born?
edad	Age category
pais	In which country were you born?
departamento	In which province do you live?
region	What region corresponds to the province you live in?
ciudad	What city do you live in?
genero	What is your gender?
estadocivil	What is your marital status?
hogar	How many people live in your household including yourself?
hijos	Do you have children?
educacion	What is the highest level of education you have achieved?
actividad	What is your current employment activity?
q10	Imagine a scale of 5 steps, in which the poorest people are in “1” and on the “5” step are the richer people, where would you rank yourself?
q11	During the past 30 days, was there a time when your household ran out of food due to lack of money or other resources?
q12	Do you receive any monetary subsidy, social program or money transfer from the government?
q13	In politics we usually speak of “left” and “right”. On a scale where “0” is the “left and 10 the”right “, where would you place yourself?
q14	What is the total monthly income of your household (adding that of all the members of your household) in a recent typical month in [country currency]?
q15r1	Would you have as neighbors: Lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans people?
q15r2	Would you have as neighbors: Migrant people?
q15r3	Would you have as neighbors: People of a different race or ethnicity than yours?
q15r4	Would you have as neighbors: People of a different religion than yours?
q16r1	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Sometimes it is difficult to see things from the point of view of others.
q16r2	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: I often have feelings of concern for people with fewer opportunities than me.
q16r3	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: In the [country], everyone has the opportunity to succeed and be economically successful
q17	What has the most influence on whether a person is poor?
	[Note the video is shown to participants after Question 17]
q18	Out of every 100 inhabitants in [country], how many do you think are migrants?
q19	In [country], [statistic] out of 100 people finish secondary education. Out of 100 migrants in [country], how many you think have completed secondary education?
q22r1	Please read the following sentence and select whether you think that the circumstances they describe are good, bad or that it depends: Migrants live in your country.
q22r2	Please read the following sentence and select whether you think that the circumstances they describe are good, bad or that it depends: A migrant is your neighbor.
q22r3	Please read the following sentence and select whether you think that the circumstances they describe are good, bad or that it depends: A migrant marries a close relative of yours.
q23r2	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Migrants contribute to the country’s economy.
q23r3	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Migrants come to compete for our jobs.
q23r4	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Migrants increase crime.
q23r5	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Most migrant women end up practicing prostitution.
q23r6	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Migrants improve our society by bringing new ideas and cultures.
q23r7	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Migrants are a burden on the State.
q23r8	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: In general, migrants contribute more to the country than what they take from it.
q24r1	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: the government of [country] providing migrants living with access to humanitarian aid such as temporary accommodation, food and medical emergency care.
q24r2	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: the government of [country] providing migrants with access to work permit or documents that allows them to work legally.
q24r3	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: the government of [country] providing migrants with health services in the same conditions that these are provided to [country’s own citizens].
q24r4	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: the government of [country] providing education services for migrant children and young people in the same conditions as they are provided to [country’s own citizens].
q24r5	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: the government of [country] providing health services for migrant children in the same conditions as they are provided to [country’s own citizens].
q25a1	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Yes, as my friends
q25a2	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Yes, as my acquaintances (classmates / work / etc.)
q25a3	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Yes, as my employees or service providers for me
q25a4	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Yes, as my employers
q25a5	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Yes, as my partner
q25a6	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Yes, as my neighbors
q25a7	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Yes, other
q25a8	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - No relationship
q25a9	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Prefer not to answer
q25a1d	Are you in contact with migrants in your daily life? - Please specify other
tratamiento	Assigned treatment group

For migrants_domrep.csv these are the columns that are unique to the Dominican Republic survey:

Variable	Description	Difference
q20	If you had any additional money: to which of the following organizations in your country, would you donate, or would not donate to anyone?	Question number
q32	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Sometimes it is difficult to see things from migrants’ point of view	Question number

For migrants_mex.csv these are the columns that are unique to the Mexico survey:

Variable	Description	Difference
q20	How much do you agree or disagree with the following: Sometimes it is difficult to see things from migrants’ point of view.	Question number
q21	If you had any additional money: to which of the following organizations in your country, would you donate, or would not donate to anyone?	Question number

Questions

Note that the videos were shown to participants after q17 in all countries.

1. Pick a country (either Mexico or the Dominican Republic). It’s important that the treatment groups and placebo groups are “balanced”. Do you have evidence they are balanced across observable demographic characteristics?

2. Having read the motivations and survey questions, come up with some research questions. For example, “What is the overall effect of the treatment arms on a respondent’s likelihood of responding ‘bad’ to the statement, ‘Migrants live in your country’ (q22r1)?”. How would you model these research questions?

3. Run your model from question 2. What do you conclude?

4. How do your results change if you control for respondent heterogeneity, such as gender and age?

5. Look at pages 45-46 in the original ABWMLAC study. Do the authors make modeling choices that you didn’t consider? Do you agree with these differences?

6. Can you replicate the results in Tables 3.1 (for Mexico) or 3.3 (for the DR) in the original ABWMLAC study?

7. Suppose you want to compare the effects of the treatment groups between the countries of Mexico and the Dominican Republic. For example, “Is there a significant difference between Mexico and the DR with regards to the effect of the informative video on a respondent’s likelihood of responding ‘bad’ to q22r1?”. How would you test this?

References

Cruces, G., Fajardo, J., Hernández, P., Ibáñez, A. M., Luzes, M., Meléndez, M., Muñoz, F., Rodríguez Guillén, L., & Tenjo, L. (2023). A Better World for Migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean. https://doi.org/10.18235/0004850

Cruces, Guillermo; Fajardo, Johanna; Hernández, Pablo; Ibáñez, Ana María; Luzes, Marta; Meléndez, Marcela; Muñoz, Felipe; Rodríguez Guillén, Lucina; Tenjo, Laura, 2023. Survey Data associated with: A Better World for Migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean, IDB Open Data, https://doi.org/10.60966/fnm3-ab90.

Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.