Polarization and Optimal Allocation of Migrants

Abstract

Models of migrants' allocation over districts or regions in the country aiming to decrease or at least not to increase the existing polarization of the population are proposed. Arrival of new immigrants representing different cultures and nationalities increases the diversity in the host society. However, the obtained problems are heterogeneity of the population, demand on the labor market and, most importantly, possible increase in polarization between local population and migrants. High level of polarization may lead to tensions in the society. A polarization may emerge due to different social, cultural, ethnic and other measurable characteristics of the population. The reasons for polarization might be infinite, for example, two groups might be funs of two different football teams. To achieve the optimal allocation of immigrants, which minimizes the level of polarization in the society, several models are proposed taking into account different goals to decrease society polarization. The formal statement of the optimization problem includes the distribution of population, migrants and polarization in settlements. We consider the distribution of polarization among migrants and that of the original population itself. Main assumption here is that after allocation of migrants in the settlements the final polarization can change, thus, this effect should be taken into account.