Table 1
Frequency distributions for the anti-immigrant and anti-Walloon items.
| Disagree completely | Disagree | Neither agree, nor disagree | Agree | Agree completely | Mean | N | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-Walloon attitudes | q113_1 | In general, Walloons cannot be trusted. | 10.4 | 59.4 | 20.4 | 9.1 | 0.8 | 2.30 | 655 |
| q113_2 | The Walloons take advantage of our social security system. | 2.7 | 19.9 | 26.9 | 45.2 | 5.4 | 3.31 | 651 | |
| q113_3 | The Francophones are a threat to our culture and customs in the Brussels periphery. | 2.7 | 27.8 | 28.7 | 35.8 | 5.1 | 3.13 | 645 | |
| q113_4 | The presence of Francophone culture enriches our society. | 1.5 | 17.9 | 37.4 | 40.2 | 3.0 | 3.25 | 651 | |
| q113_5 | Most Walloons are lazy. They try to avoid exhausting and heavy work. | 5.9 | 41.1 | 31.2 | 19.8 | 2.0 | 2.71 | 651 | |
| q113_8 | The government does more for the Walloons than for the Flemings. | 1.8 | 31.7 | 33.4 | 28.4 | 4.6 | 3.02 | 637 | |
| Anti-immigrant attitudes | q68_1 | In general, migrants cannot be trusted. | 6.2 | 32.9 | 31.0 | 24.3 | 5.6 | 2.90 | 652 |
| q68_3 | Migrants come here to take advantage of our social security system. | 2.3 | 11.2 | 25.1 | 42.4 | 19.0 | 3.65 | 655 | |
| q68_4 | Migrants are a threat to our culture and customs. | 3.7 | 26.7 | 17.9 | 40.4 | 11.4 | 3.29 | 656 | |
| q68_5 | The presence of different cultures enriches our society. | 4.5 | 26.4 | 25.6 | 39.8 | 3.7 | 3.12 | 652 | |
| q68_8 | Most migrants are lazy. They try to avoid exhausting and heavy work. | 5.0 | 35.9 | 31.3 | 20.7 | 7.2 | 2.89 | 651 | |
| q70_4 | The government does more for immigrants than for Belgians. | 5.8 | 25.6 | 21.3 | 32.5 | 14.9 | 3.25 | 648 |
[i] Source: Belgian National Election Study (BNES) 2010. Results are weighted for gender, age and education.
Figure 1
Explanation model for anti-Walloon and anti-immigration attitudes.
Table 2
Fit indices for the measurement models of anti-immigrant and anti-Walloon attitudes.
| Chi2 | Df | RMSEA | CFI | TLI | SRMR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1 | 1 factor | 535.8 | 54 | 0.116 | 0.846 | 0.811 | 0.073 |
| M2 | 2 factors – no error correlations | 171.3 | 53 | 0.058 | 0.962 | 0.953 | 0.035 |
| M3 | 2 factors + error corr. – Equal configuration | 98.5 | 47 | 0.041 | 0.983 | 0.977 | 0.027 |
| M4a | 2 factors + error corr. – Equal factor loadings | 139.7 | 52 | 0.051 | 0.972 | 0.964 | 0.057 |
| M4b | 2 factors + error corr. – Partially equal factor loadings | 117.0 | 50 | 0.045 | 0.979 | 0.972 | 0.042 |
| M5a | 2 factors + error corr. – Equal intercepts | 224.0 | 53 | 0.070 | 0.945 | 0.932 | 0.050 |
| M5b | 2 factors + error corr. – Partially equal intercepts | 125.3 | 52 | 0.046 | 0.976 | 0.970 | 0.045 |
[i] Source: Belgian National Election Study (BNES) 2010; N = 661.
Table 3
Measurement parameters for anti-immigrant and anti-Walloon attitudes (Model 5b).
| Factor1: Anti-immig. | Factor2: Anti-Wal. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Par.Est. | SE | Par.Est. | SE | Par.Est. | SE | ||
| q68_1 | In general, migrants cannot be trusted. | 0.73 | (0.02) | – | 2.93 | (0.08) | |
| q68_3 | Migrants come here to take advantage of our social security system. | 0.86 | (0.01) | – | 3.50 | (0.10) | |
| q68_4 | Migrants are a threat to our culture and customs. | 0.80 | (0.02) | – | 2.96 | (0.09) | |
| q68_5 | The presence of different cultures enriches our society. | –0.60 | (0.03) | – | 3.17 | (0.10) | |
| q68_8 | Most migrants are lazy. They try to avoid exhausting and heavy work. | 0.75 | (0.02) | – | 2.81 | (0.08) | |
| q70_4 | The government does more for immigrants than for Belgians. | 0.69 | (0.02) | – | 2.80 | (0.08) | |
| q113_1 | In general, Walloons cannot be trusted. | – | 0.68 | (0.02) | 3.03 | (0.09) | |
| q113_2 | The Walloons take advantage of our social security system. | – | 0.74 | (0.02) | 3.89 | (0.10) | |
| q113_3 | The Francophones are a threat to our culture and customs in the Brussels periphery. | – | 0.57 | (0.03) | 3.44 | (0.10) | |
| q113_4 | The presence of Francophone culture enriches our society. | – | –0.35 | (0.04) | 3.77 | (0.12) | |
| q113_5 | Most Walloons are lazy. They try to avoid exhausing and heavy work. | – | 0.66 | (0.02) | 3.17 | (0.09) | |
| q113_8 | The goverment does more for the Walloons than for the Flemish. | – | 0.66 | (0.02) | 3.43 | (0.10) | |
| Variances | Latent means | ||||||
| Par.Est. | SE | Par.Est. | SE | ||||
| Factor 1: anti-immigrant attitudes | 0.50 | (0.04) | 0.00 | (–) | |||
| Factor 2: anti-Walloon attitudes | 0.30 | (0.03) | –0.20 | (0.03) | |||
| Correlation (Factor 1, Factor 2) | 0.65 | (0.03) | |||||
[i] Source: Belgian National Election Study (BNES) 2010; N = 661. The model contains error covariances between the matched item pairs.
Table 4
Full structural equation model explaining anti-immigrant and anti-Walloon attitudes.
| Relative deprivation | Authoritarianism | Sub-national identification | Anti-immigrant attitudes | Anti-Walloon attitudes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct effect | Indirect effect | Direct effect | Indirect effect | ||||
| Gender | |||||||
| Male (ref.cat.) | |||||||
| Female | 0.252*** | 0.140 | –0.153 | 0.151* | 0.040 | ||
| Age (in years) | 0.025 | 0.299*** | –0.025 | 0.157*** | 0.115** | ||
| Educational level | |||||||
| Primary or lower secondary | 0.894*** | 0.816*** | –0.430** | 0.200* | 0.710*** | 0.262* | 0.333** |
| Higher secondary | 0.556*** | 0.678*** | –0.081 | –0.073 | 0.548*** | –0.095 | 0.378*** |
| Tertiary (ref.cat.) | |||||||
| Religious involvement | |||||||
| Non-believer/free-thinker | –0.054 | –0.300** | –0.136 | –0.187* | –0.211* | ||
| Occasional church attendance (ref.cat.) | |||||||
| Regular church attendance | –0.206* | –0.086 | 0.171 | –0.104 | 0.004 | ||
| Social capital | |||||||
| Not a member of association | 0.356*** | 0.175* | 0.075 | 0.235*** | 0.205** | ||
| Member of association (ref.cat.) | |||||||
| Relative deprivation | 0.390*** | 0.261*** | |||||
| Authoritarianism | 0.502*** | 0.409*** | |||||
| National identification (Flemish vs. Belgian) | 0.113** | 0.544*** | |||||
| Proportion of explained variance | 0.235 | 0.328 | 0.047 | 0.689 | 0.706 | ||
| Fit indices | Chi-square: 668.9*** Df: 276 RMSEA: 0.046 CFI: 0.929 TLI: 0.915 SRMR: 0.044 | ||||||
[i] Source: Belgian National Election Study (BNES) 2010; N = 661; * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001.
Regression parameters are standardized or, in the case of dummy predictors semi-standardized (i.e. standardized for the dependent variable but not for the predictor).
The impact of education is constrained to be equal across the two prejudices. Note that because the equality constraint is imposed on unstandardized parameters, standardized parameters can be different nevertheless.