Individual gendered attitudes toward immigrants. Empirical evidence from French surveys

• There is a gender gap in tolerance with immigrants.
• Three explanations: structural factors, gendered sensitivity and relative sex ratio.
• Test with French individual and contextual data on three measurements of intolerance.
• The gender gap is partly accounted for both gendered sensitivity and relative sex ratio.

This article explores gendered attitudes towards immigrants and argues there are three gendered effects on intolerance: the gender gap that induces different levels of intolerance for men and women; gendered sensitivity, meaning men and women react differently to contact or competition with immigrants; the relative sex ratio related to the demographic gender changes in the environment due to immigrants. These hypotheses are tested using the French WVS data and three different intolerance measurements: soft and hard intolerance and relative empathy. The results highlight that the simple gender gap, already observed in the literature, can be partly accounted for by both gendered sensitivity and the relative sex ratio. More broadly, the findings confirm the hypothesis of gendered attitudes towards immigrants defined by three dimensions.