The Effect of Ethnic Diversity and Community Disadvantage on Social Cohesion: A Multi-Level Analysis of Social Capital and Interethnic Relations in UK Communities

Abstract

A number of studies have found a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social capital and assumed from this a harmful effect of diversity on social cohesion. This article suggests that social cohesion must be treated as a multifaceted concept and any analysis into the relationship between diversity and social capital needs to be complemented by an analysis of diversity’s effect on ‘relations between ethnic groups’. Our results show that while increasing diversity does have a negative impact on social capital, it simultaneously improves perceptions of, and relations between, ethnic groups. Furthermore, we find that forming ‘bridging’ ties in diverse environments plays a significant role in the positive relationship between diversity and tolerance, and that the presence of ‘bridging’ ties can also reduce the negative impact of diversity on social capital. However, while our results show that diversity has both positive and negative effects on social cohesion, we find that it is disadvantage which has the most detrimental impact, undermining both social capital and interethnic relations. We also find evidence that using a more sensitive measure of diversity (creating an area typology based on the proportional size, number, and type of ethnic groups in an area) reveals that living in different structures of diversity may lead to different social cohesion outcomes.