TY - JOUR

T1 - Discrimination against mobile European Union citizens before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown

T2 - Evidence from a conjoint experiment in Germany

AU - Fernández-i-Marín, Xavier

AU - Rapp, Carolin H.

AU - James, Oliver

AU - Manatschal, Anita

N1 - Funding Information: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (grant number 51NF40-182897). Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2021.

PY - 2021/12

Y1 - 2021/12

N2 - One of the greatest achievements of the EU is the freedom of movement between member states offering citizens equal rights in EU member states. EU enlargement and the COVID-19 pandemic allow for a critical test of whether EU citizens are indeed treated equally in practice. We test preferential treatment of EU citizens in two hypothetical choice experiments in Germany at two different time points: in the period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Theories of responses to threat suggest that the COVID-19 crisis should increase discrimination against mobile EU citizens. While our findings reveal sizeable discrimination based on nationality and language proficiency of mobile EU citizens, the findings also suggest that, contrary to expectations, discrimination did not increase in the initial COVID-19 crisis period.

AB - One of the greatest achievements of the EU is the freedom of movement between member states offering citizens equal rights in EU member states. EU enlargement and the COVID-19 pandemic allow for a critical test of whether EU citizens are indeed treated equally in practice. We test preferential treatment of EU citizens in two hypothetical choice experiments in Germany at two different time points: in the period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Theories of responses to threat suggest that the COVID-19 crisis should increase discrimination against mobile EU citizens. While our findings reveal sizeable discrimination based on nationality and language proficiency of mobile EU citizens, the findings also suggest that, contrary to expectations, discrimination did not increase in the initial COVID-19 crisis period.

KW - conjoint experiment

KW - COVID-19

KW - discrimination

KW - mobile EU citizens

KW - pandemic

U2 - 10.1177/14651165211037208

DO - 10.1177/14651165211037208

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85116381128

VL - 22

SP - 741

EP - 761

JO - European Union Politics

JF - European Union Politics

SN - 1465-1165

IS - 4

ER -