The December 2024 survey by ARD Deutschlandtrend was recently conducted and one of its results was described by Infratest-Dimap as follows: "When asked about the most important political problems that politicians should address after the election, a good four out of ten named the economic situation, a quarter immigration."
In recent years, too, immigration has been viewed critically by some in the population. This is shown, for example, by data from the last two rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS). Among other things, the ESS asks about attitudes towards people who come to Germany from poorer countries outside Europe to live here. The respondents are asked to indicate how many people should be allowed to come.
The survey in the 4th quarter of 2021 showed: many (20%), some (49%), a few (25%), nobody (6%). N = 8,456
The survey in the 2nd half of 2023 showed: many (21%), some (44%), a few (28%), nobody (7%). N = 2,357
Thus, 31 and 35 percent of the people surveyed in the ESS indicated a rather critical attitude towards immigration. Though a direct comparison of these figures with the "quarter" (i.e., the 25%) quoted above in the current ARD Germany Trend is not possible, it is certainly remarkable that completely different approaches to asking the topic suggest similar magnitudes.
Thus, when comparing the ESS figures over time, the frequency distributions appear largely stable. However, the comparison over time is slightly limited by the change in the interview method from self-administered (web/postal) in ESS round 10 to interviewer-mediated (face-to-face) in ESS round 11. In any case, we know from survey methodology that interviewer-mediated interviews are more susceptible to socially desirable answers than self-administered interviews.
As another source of data, we can use a Eurobarometer survey, namely the Flash Eurobarometer 550 conducted in June/July 2024, with its n=1,000 respondents for Germany*. The survey asks about the European Union. On the one hand, about the "biggest challenges currently facing the EU" and on the other hand about the "biggest global challenges for the future of the EU". The respondents were given a list of ten such challenges and asked to select "up to three" of them each. "Irregular migration" is one of the ten challenges asked about in both lists, named as a challenge by 40 percent ("currently") and 39 percent ("for the future of the EU"), and with these values it ranks second and third out of the ten percentage values respectively. The population therefore attaches greater importance to the topic. If you then look at what percentage of respondents selected the topic of "irregular migration" in both lists, i.e. see it as an ongoing challenge, the percentage is 27 percent. This number is also not directly comparable with the figures above due to different question reference (here: EU) and different question wordings, but would also suggest a proportion of the population of around a quarter that obviously attaches comparatively greater importance to the topic.
In the two rounds of the European Social Survey, I also find the connection between two attitudes particularly interesting: the attitude people have towards immigration and the attitude towards authority as an educational goal. If you click on the table to enlarge it, you will see that both attitudes are closely related: the percentage of those for whom "obedience and respect for authority are the most important values" "that children should learn" rose from 49% to 70% to 86% in the 2023 survey, and from 36% to 54% to 68% in the 2021 survey. The more critical the attitude towards the form of immigration in question, the higher the degree of acceptance of this educational goal.
This connection is not only interesting per se, but also because of another correlation: the attitude towards the educational goal in question correlates quite strongly with this attitude: "What Germany needs most is loyalty to the political leadership." In the 2021 survey, this correlation is r=0.49 and in the 2023 survey, r=0.37. It is one thing to rate loyalty to the political leadership very highly, but it is something else entirely to primarily support a political leadership critically and thereby also want to exercise democratic control.
I would like to examine this in more detail in the next analysis in this news section.
*Source (Dataset): European Commission: Flash Eurobarometer 550: EU challenges and priorities, June-July 2024. Ipsos European Public Affairs [Producer]; GESIS Data Archive: ZA8870, dataset version 1.0.0. (2024), doi: 10.4232/1.14410. The survey was carried out June 25 to July 02, 2024. (quota sample, self-administered web interviews). Frequency distributions are "w1" weighted in this analysis. .