Refugees welcome!
According to a perception study carried out by Statistics Netherlands, 75% of Dutch adults welcome shelter refugees to the Netherlands. Great news ( could be better though 😉 )! This study was conducted last year, and was used to find out opinions relating to social and environmental issues.
According to the results, individuals who have come into contact with a refugee, were highly educated, were women, were not from the West or live in more urban environments, were more likely to support it. Individuals who were from disadvantaged backgrounds or low-skilled backgrounds, were men or were living in more rural areas, were more likely to think negatively about it.
Culture? Security threat?
49% feel that refugees do not pose a threat to Dutch security. What we have learnt from the attacks in Europe is that almost always, the offender is not a refugee. A lot of the fear surrounding allowing refugees, has been manipulated in order to create that fear. This is pretty sad to witness.
When it comes to cultural differences, 31% feel that they can keep their own culture after arriving in the Netherlands, whereas 33% think not. This is pretty vague though, as ‘culture’ could be applicable to many different things and I guess each person’s opinions will differ depending on each one of these.
The 75% is not applicable to economic migrants. This changes when speaking about economic migrants, which has less positive results. This is also affected if the economic migrant is not from an EU country.
We will see if these stats change over the next year or so.
As always, we should carry on being thankful for living in a safe country like NL 🙂
What do you think about these statistics? Let us know in the comments. Don’t forget to join our Facebook group for more Dutch tings’
