Abstract
This article examines the labor market outcomes and political preferences of majority, minority, or migrant individuals who report that they live in an ethnic enclave—a neighborhood with few majority residents. Politicians often proclaim that ethnic enclaves are problematic, but there is little rigorous examination of these claims. The ethnic composition of a local residential area can affect its inhabitants negatively by increasing conflict and competition (real or perceived) between groups. Majority members may feel their economic and political power questioned and think that the resources to which they are entitled have been usurped by newcomers. Migrants and minorities can be negatively impacted by isolation from the mainstream society, and their integration attempts can be hindered in ethnically concentrated local areas. Using data from the 2002 and 2014 waves of the European Social Survey, enriched with contextual data, we examine the impact of ethnic enclaves accounting for selection and compositional differences. We do not find evidence that minority concentrated areas impact negatively upon the economic outcomes of majority members, not even of those in precarious positions. We do however find that residence in enclaves is associated with greater propensity to vote for the far right and dissatisfaction with democracy for the majority group. Furthermore, there is an economic enclave penalty associated with the labor market insertion of migrants and the job quality of the second generation, and ethnic enclaves also increase the dissatisfaction with democracy among the second generation. We discuss our findings in light of the threat and contact literature.
Highlights
Increased migration to and within Europe has made ethnic diversity in local areas an everyday experience for majority populations across Europe (Iceland, 2014; Laméris et al, 2018)
Using the 2002 and 2014 waves of the European Social Survey (ESS), we find that, before we account for compositional differences, living in a perceived ethnic enclave is on average positively associated with the threat to economic power—activity, employment, and occupational status for all groups we examine
This is the case for majority members as well as for migrants and the second generation
Summary
Increased migration to and within Europe has made ethnic diversity in local areas an everyday experience for majority populations across Europe (Iceland, 2014; Laméris et al, 2018). While residential segregation is not as high as in the United States, migrants and their children often live concentrated in more deprived areas than the majority (Semyonov et al, 2012) Such spatial local concentration of migrants and minorities is often referred to as an ethnic enclave (Portes and Zhou, 1993; Waldinger, 1994) and is interpreted by politicians as problematic, hindering integration for minorities and increasing their sense of distance from the mainstream (Cameron, 2011). We use cross-nationally comparable European data to study whether there is an association between the perceived ethnic composition in the local residential area and two sets of outcomes: on one hand, labor market outcomes, and on the other hand, political behavior. We capture the distinction between threat to labor market position (heightened competition should result in observed poor labor market outcomes) and threat to political power (which should result in greater support of farright parties which programs frequently stoke such fears, or higher salience of political nationalism and dissatisfaction with democracy)
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