Abstract
Residential segregation is a well studied subject especially after the publication of the pioneering and seminal contribution of Duncan and Duncan (Am Sociol Rev 41:210–217, 1955). Considering the theoretical and methodological advances made since then, the contribution endeavours in describing and understanding the differences in residential segregation in an international perspective using 2011 population census data. The contribution analyses the residential segregation of migrants (here foreign citizens or foreign born) usually resident in the 493 Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) of selected European Union countries. The analysis is conducted using 2011 census data on regular grid (100 mt × 100 mt) provided by the Data Challenge on ‘Integration of Migrants in Cities’ (D4I) and refers to all migrants and to two sub groups (EU 28 and non EU 28). In a first step the levels and spatial patterns of residential segregation across all FUAs of France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom are analysed. Particular attention is paid to identifying differences and similarities between the FUAs, among and within the single countries. In a further analysis the relationship between the level of residential segregation in the metropolitan FUAs of the selected EU countries and contextual demographic and socio-economic factors are investigated. Results indicate that, even if, the larger metropolitan areas attract more migrants, the highest levels of residential segregation are observed in smaller urban areas. Moreover important national peculiarities emerge clearly with countries of northwestern Europe recording lower levels of residential segregation compared to the Southern European countries. Finally, residential segregation shows clear relationships with some contextual factors, especially the ones related to economic well-being and the labour market in a positive manner.
Highlights
The territorial distribution of foreigners has always attracted the interest of scholars belonging to different social disciplines and stimulated special interest when leading to residential segregation
D4I is an initiative launched at the end of 2017 by the Joint Research Center (JRC) - Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography (KMCD) of the European Commission to disseminate to scholars and researchers a data set with population estimates for grids allowing the analysis of the concentration of migrants in selected European Union cities at high spatial resolution
Large metropolitan areas still remain the areas where the majority of foreigners reside. This is true for all the countries analysed: France (12.9% is the value of the incidence of foreigners in large metropolitan areas vs. 10.0% in the total urban areas), Germany (17.7% vs. 15.6%), Italy (7.6% vs. 7.5%), Portugal (13.7% vs. 9.9%), Spain (14.7% vs. 10.8%), The Netherlands (17.4% vs. 13.0%), United Kingdom (24.9% vs. 14.3%)
Summary
The territorial distribution of foreigners has always attracted the interest of scholars belonging to different social disciplines and stimulated special interest when leading to residential segregation. Important are some recent studies that link residential segregation to socio-economic characteristics in different European contexts (Tammaru et al 2016, 2020; Nieuwenhuis et al 2020; Musterd et al 2017) Most of these studies use administrative divisions as primary geographical units of analysis that might be problematic for comparison purposes. Another limit is that these studies often focus on single cities as case studies without including other urban settlements and the metropolitan dimension in their analysis They often do not refer to countries of Northern Europe and Southern Europe at the same time. In the final part results are discussed and conclusions are drawn
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