Wednesday

29th Mar 2023

EU citizens overestimate immigrant numbers, survey shows

EU citizens tend to overestimate the number of immigrants and the unemployment rate in their country, a survey has shown.

Ipsos Mori asked 11,527 people from 14 countries via the internet to estimate nine features of their society.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

  • Migrant woman in Athens: Respondents tended to overestimate the number of foreigners in their country (Photo: Zalmai)

The survey, published on Wednesday (29 October) was conducted in nine EU countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom), Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the United States of America.

The result shows the respondents believed that there were far more immigrants in their country than is actually the case.

While 10.8 percent of the population in the surveyed countries was born abroad, the respondents reckoned it was 24 percent.

Italians think 30 percent of their population are immigrants (it is 7%), while Belgians believe 29 percent of those living in their country were born abroad (it is10%).

The surveyed also showed that people overestimate the proportion of Muslims in their country. On average, they think that 16 percent of their compatriots are Muslim, while only 3 percent in the researched countries are.

French respondents estimated that 31 of every 100 people living in France are Muslim, when actually only eight in 100 are. Britons think the proportion is 21 in 100, (but it is five per 100).

The respondents – who were aged between 16 and 64 – also overestimated the proportion of their population which is older than 65, and the unemployment rate in their country.

Of the 14 nationalities, Italians are wrong about these issues most often. They estimate that 48 in every 100 Italians is 65 or over, but only 21 in 100 are.

Italians also think the unemployment rate is 49 percent when the official rate is 12 percent.

And if the respondents are to be believed, teenage pregnancy is much more widespread than it actually is.

In Britain, 16 percent of teenage girls (15- to 19-year-olds) are thought to have a baby annually – in fact the figure is 3 percent. In Germany, people overestimate annual teen pregnancy by a factor of 35. (14%, when the figure is 0.4%)

Scientific experiments have shown that people have difficulty excluding their prejudices when asked to estimate the percentage of a feature in a population. They tend to overestimate the size of an issue which is present in their recent memory.

“People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory – and this is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media”, economist Daniel Kahneman writes in Thinking, Fast and Slow.

EU Commission defends Eurobarometer methodology

The EU executive responds that its public opinion survey is not a statistic, but a snapshot, after concerns were raised over the method that could result in pro-EU bias.

EU approves 2035 phaseout of polluting cars and vans

The agreement will ban the sale of carbon-emitting cars after 2035. The EU Commission will present a proposal for e-fuels after pressure from German negotiators via a delegated act, which can still be rejected by the EU Parliament.

Column

What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking

Perhaps even more surprising to the West was the fact that the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal was not brokered by the United States, or the European Union, but by the People's Republic of China. Since when was China mediating peace agreements?

Column

What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking

Perhaps even more surprising to the West was the fact that the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal was not brokered by the United States, or the European Union, but by the People's Republic of China. Since when was China mediating peace agreements?

Opinion

Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad

The EU and the bioenergy industry claim trees cut for energy will regrow, eventually removing extra CO2 from the atmosphere. But regrowth is not certain, and takes time, decades or longer. In the meantime, burning wood makes climate change worse.

Latest News

  1. EU approves 2035 phaseout of polluting cars and vans
  2. New measures to shield the EU against money laundering
  3. What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking
  4. Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad
  5. Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity
  6. Finnish elections and Hungary's Nato vote in focus This WEEK
  7. EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict
  8. Okay, alright, AI might be useful after all

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  2. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us