The Visibility of Women and Ethnic Minorities in Claims-Making about Immigration

Migrants and increasingly migrant women have become subject to a highly politicized public debate on migration. However, we know little about the role they play in this politicization. To address this gap, this article examines to which extent women and members of ethnic minorities have a voice and appear as claims-makers on immigration and integration. Newspapers in 10 Western European countries (1990-2018) were systematically coded to identify public claims on these issues, together with coding of first names of claims-makers to identify gender and ethnic membership (N=11,164 claims). Results show that women appear less often as claims-makers than men, with even lower visibility among ethnic minority women. Hierarchical regression analyses reveal systematic differences in framing, tone, topic, and the addressees of the claims. This indicates that the voices of women and ethnic minorities are not visible, and these debates would be different if women and minorities had an equitable voice.