Does Local Refugee Exposure Change Immigration Attitudes? Evidence from South Korea

Studies on how refugee arrivals affect natives' attitudes toward immigrants report contradictory findings. Existing explanations emphasize differences in contact conditions—quality, institutions, media—but share an assumption that residence in a refugee-receiving locality constitutes meaningful intergroup contact. This paper tests that assumption using the 2018 arrival of Yemeni asylum seekers on Jeju Island, South Korea, where refugees were geographically concentrated and confined to the island, generating localized exposure. Using a Difference-in-Differences design, I estimate the causal effect of local refugee exposure on multiple dimensions of immigrant attitudes. The analyses provide limited evidence of attitudinal change, suggesting that residence within a refugee-receiving locality should not automatically be interpreted as meaningful intergroup contact, and that both treatment exposure and multidimensional immigration attitudes require careful measurement.