Triangulating the Relationship Between Education and Attitudes Toward Immigration

Education is widely believed to predict attitudes toward immigration, but what causal relationship underlies this descriptive pattern? This research employs three distinct natural experiments and considers genetic factors to triangulate this relationship: Study 1 analyses discordant monozygotic twins; Study 2 assesses the impact of a Swedish education reform; and Study 3 analyses dizygotic twins with the use of a polygenic index for education, a DNA-based measure for genetic predispositions toward education. The results indicate that education does modestly promote open views toward immigration (Study 1), yet the reform’s effect remains uncertain (Study 2). Study 3 offers direct evidence of the effects of genetic predispositions and suggests that genetics related to education may influence attitudes beyond achieved educational attainment. These findings confirm the positive impact of education while pointing to the combined influence of genetic and social pathways in shaping immigration attitudes.