Research & Working Papers

How do local demographic conditions shape attitudes toward immigration? While immigration is often discussed as a solution to demographic challenges, little research examines how demographic change among natives—particularly population aging— influences their views on immigration. We argue that a rapidly aging population can fuel anti-immigrant attitudes when the elderly are perceived as a fiscal burden, leading immigrants to be viewed as an additional strain in an already challenging economic environment. We examine this relationship using (1) cross-sectional data from the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS) combined with local geographic information and (2) an original survey experiment conducted in South Korea. Both studies reveal that exposure to elderly populations heightens anti-immigrant sentiment when the elderly are viewed as a fiscal burden, particularly among younger working-age individuals. This study highlights the importance of demographic context in shaping immigration attitudes, offering new insights into the intersection of aging populations and public opinion on immigration.

While large scholarship has studied ideological media bias, relatively understudied is whether such bias persists under significant democratic norm violations and crises. This study examines whether ideological media bias persists during significant democratic norm violations, focusing on South Korea’s 2024 martial law declaration by then-President Yoon Suk-yeol. We analyze news articles from two conservative and two liberal newspapers within two weeks before and after the declaration. Structural Topic Models (STM) reveal that liberal outlets were more active and critical toward the incumbent and ruling party, while conservative outlets—sharing the same ideological leaning—were relatively silent in critical coverage. Sentiment analysis shows that liberal outlets’ tone toward both the president and ruling party became more critical after the declaration, whereas conservative outlets’ tone toward the ruling party remained largely unchanged. These findings provide suggestive evidence that ideological media bias can outweigh democratic accountability norms in media behavior, even during clear episodes of democratic norm crisis.

How does population aging shape public support for immigration? Which natives are most supportive or restrictive of open immigration in this context? While many advanced democracies have opened their borders to immigrants in response to rapidly growing elderly populations, surprisingly little is known about the intersection of immigration attitudes and population aging. To address this gap, I conducted a vignette survey experiment in Japan—a rapidly aging democracy—to test whether population aging shapes immigration attitudes, and if so, which groups of natives are most responsive. The findings show that, in the full sam- ple, neither informational cues nor different framings of population aging significantly shifted immigration attitudes. By contrast, subgroup analyses reveal sharp moderation effects tied to economic insecurity. Among respondents worried about pension depletion, exposure to population aging increased support for restricting immigration and reduced acceptance of low-skilled immigrants. Parallel moderators—age, anxiety about future income, and percep- tions of rising income inequality—show similar patterns. Younger respondents, those more concerned about their future income, and those perceiving greater inequality were more likely to adopt restrictive immigration views when exposed to information about population aging. These results contribute to the broader literature on immigration attitudes by situating them within demographic contexts and by providing exploratory insights into the potential drivers of backlash against immigrant incorporation in aging democracies.

This paper examines how population aging shapes democratic attitudes among young citizens in established democracies. While debates on democratic consolidation and backsliding have received extensive attention, one factor has often received relatively little attention: population aging. Focusing on Japan, one of the fastest-aging societies with the world’s lowest birth rates, we argue that a rising median voter age skews political representation toward older constituencies, thereby diminishing the representativeness and effectiveness of democracy for younger voters. We hypothesize that such demographic imbalances foster discontent with politics and dissatisfaction with democracy among youth, though these effects may be moderated by factors such as partisan identification, national identity, or education. To test these mechanisms, we employ a vignette survey experiment in which respondents are exposed to information about Japan’s increasing median voter age (“silver democracy”) and subsequently asked to evaluate democratic satisfaction, including perceptions of representativeness, overall satisfaction with democracy, and support for the incumbent party. Our study contributes to the literature on democratic backsliding by highlighting population aging as a structural factor that can erode democratic legitimacy and stability.