Age, Agency, and Legitimacy: Sources of Attitudes toward Refugee Children (With Kerim Can Kavakli).
Despite comprising over 40% of the global refugee population, children have received little attention in studies on attitudes toward refugees. We address this gap by drawing on insights from political science and sociology. We show that age serves as a key heuristic in refugee evaluations: children are perceived as more vulnerable, easier to integrate, and, crucially, lacking agency over their migration decisions. Their perceived lack of agency reassures host communities that they are not opportunistic migrants, and enhances their legitimacy in the eyes of those concerned about so-called "fake refugees." Across four pre-registered experiments in the U.S. and Turkey (N=9,884), we find that children's perceived lack of agency increases support for their permanent residency. This effect is robust across demographic and political subgroups and is comparable in magnitude to gender based differences in refugee support. Our results demonstrate that perceptions of refugee agency (shaped by demographic traits like age) play a central role in host community attitudes. This suggests that refugee advocacy efforts can increase public support for refugees by highlighting not only their vulnerability, but also their lack of control over migration. More broadly, our research highlights the need to integrate age groups beyond adulthood into studies on public opinion andmigration policy.