The role of climate and migration concerns in shaping personal economic insecurity in European societies

Abstract

This study investigates how perceptions of societal threats, specifically climate change and migration, influence subjective economic insecurity across eleven European countries (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom). The selection of countries was based on data availability within the European Social Survey (ESS) ERIC CRONOS-3 Wave 2 survey design. Nonetheless, the sample reflects significant institutional diversity across welfare regimes, labour market structures, and political discourse environments: Nordic social-democratic regimes; continental corporatist systems; post-socialist transitions; and liberal-leaning contexts. We formulate a composite measure of economic insecurity that encompasses concerns about maintaining living standards, managing financial shocks, and future economic prospects. Perceived climate and migration threats are operationalised as separate multi-item indices. Results reveal that both threat domains independently increase economic insecurity, controlling for income, age, education, and gender. Interaction models demonstrate systematic variation across socioeconomic strata, with lower-income and less-educated groups exhibiting heightened sensitivity to threat perceptions. Cross-national analysis shows substantial variation, suggesting that institutional contexts—particularly welfare state architectures and political discourse environments—moderate how macro-level concerns translate into personal economic assessments. These findings advance affective political economy by demonstrating spillover mechanisms linking societal threats to economic self-evaluations. Policy implications are twofold: targeted social protection should bolster resilience among vulnerable groups, while broader efforts should reframe climate and migration as collective challenges focused on adaptation rather than threats. This includes strengthening trust in institutions and ensuring universal, predictable guarantees that restore a sense of control and shared efficacy.