Researchers conducted 100 surveys of a total or 143,000 people dispersed among 36 countries about whom they preferred as immigrants.  About 70% of the surveys were conducted in Europe and U.S. / Canada. In online or phone surveys people were shown pairs or sets of hypothetical immigrant profiles with varying attributes such as education, occupation, language ability, religion, origin country, and reason for migration.

Results: Respondents consistently favored immigrants with higher education, employment, and in high-skill occupations. Language proficiency in the host-country language was strongly rewarded.

Interestingly, origin-country characteristics—cultural similarity, development level, and democratic institutions—played relatively little. role.

Right‑wing respondents put heavier weight on economic productivity factors —occupational skill and host‑country language ability— than left‑wing respondents, who valued these traits but less intensely. Conservatives also treated cultural similarity as central, strongly favoring immigrants who share the majority religion and people from Europe. Liberals gave little weight to majority religion, showed no systematic premium for European origin, and were relatively indifferent to national development or democratic status of sending countries compared with conservatives.

The article: “Which immigrants do citizens prefer? A meta-reanalysis of 100 conjoint experiments” by Marco Aviña et al. Science Advances research article on May 27 2026.