Multiculturalism is Unpopular With the Majority – Even Though it Makes for Happier Societies
- 2017-02-21
- LSE
How do people feel about multicultural policies? Ethnic majorities tend to resent them, and feel less safe in societies with a number of affirmative and rights-based policies, write Pamela Irving Jackson and Peter Doerschler. As a result, governments have come under pressure to ensure policies that tackle inequality benefit everyone. Yet both ethnic majorities and minorities declare themselves happier with their lives and governments when they live in states with multicultural policies.
Elected political leaders in Europe no longer promote multiculturalism as a way of reducing the disparities between ethnic majorities and minorities from immigrant backgrounds. Now programmes intended to tackle inequality are presented as open to all members of the state who need them – as a series of papers published by the Migration Policy Institute has set out.