Co-ethnic Concentration Research Articles

Do Neighborhoods Empower or Disenfranchise? Coethnic Concentration, Spatial Disadvantage, and Voter Registration in France

Do Neighborhoods Empower or Disenfranchise? Coethnic Concentration, Spatial Disadvantage, and Voter Registration in France

Sleep and Diurnal Cortisol Patterns: Cultural Prediction and Moderation Among Latino College Students

Sleep is a bioregulatory mechanism that promotes healthy physiological stress processes. Little research has examined daily links between sleep and diurnal cortisol patterns in minoritized youth populations, or explored whether such links are predicted by developmentallysalient cultural factors. Using a strengths-based approach to understanding cultural neurobiology, we examined individual (e.g., familism values) and institutional (i.e., changes in co-ethnic concentration) predictors of diurnal cortisol patterns, and whether cultural factors moderated daily links between sleep and cortisol. Methods: Salivary cortisol was collected five times a day in conjunction with actigraphy sleep across three weekdays in a sample of 180 Latino first-year college students (Mage=18.95; 64.4% female). High school and college institutional characteristics and self-reported cultural values were also collected. Results: Three-level growth curve analyses revealed greater sleep duration one night was linked with higher waking cortisol (γ=.119, p<.01), lower cortisol awakening responses (CAR; γ=-.070, p=.01), and steeper cortisol slopes (DCS; γ=-.035, p<.01) the next day. Experiencing more congruent campus contexts, but not familism, was associated with greater CAR (γ=.251, p<.05), on average. Familism values moderated day-to-day associations; greater sleep duration one night was associated with steeper DCS the next day for individuals reporting low (b=-.053, p=.003) or average levels of familism (b=-.036, p=.001). Conclusion: Findings illustrate cultural neurobiological processes as longer sleep was linked with healthier diurnal profiles in Latino college students and individual cultural values and exposure to coethnic peers served as protective and promotive factors, respectively.

Ethnic spatial dispersion and immigrant identity*

ABSTRACT The role of ethnic clustering in ethnic identity formation has remained unexplored, mainly due to missing detailed data. This study closes the knowledge gap for Germany by employing a unique combination of datasets, the survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and disaggregated information at low geographical levels from the last two but still unexploited full German censuses, 1970 and 1987. Utilizing the exogenous placement of immigrants during the recruitment era in the 1960s and 1970s we find that local co-ethnic concentration affects immigrants’ ethnic identity. While residential ethnic clustering strengthens immigrants’ retention of an affiliation with their origin (minority identity), it weakens identification with the host society (majority identity). The effects are nonlinear and become significant only at relatively high levels of co-ethnic concentration for the minority identity and at very low levels of local concentration for the majority identity. The findings are robust to an instrumental variable approach.

How Anti-Asian Racism is Experienced

Growing attention has been given to the massive spike in anti-Asian hate crimes since the COVID-19 outbreak. But it is also essential to recognize that not all Asians experience the rise of anti-Asian racism to the same degree. Many individual and contextual factors may shape individuals’ subjective experience of anti-Asian racism. Underlying Asians’ differential experiences are the unequal psychological consequences they bear. This essay explores nativity, and co-ethnic concentration, as well as how they interact to affect Asians’ experience of anti-Asian racism.

Coethnic Concentration and Asians' Perceived Discrimination across U.S. Counties during COVID-19.

Aggregate figures unequivocally depict an increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and other Western countries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is limited understanding of the contexts under which Asians encounter discrimination. The authors examine how coethnic concentration shapes Asians’ experiences of discrimination across U.S. counties during COVID-19 and also assess whether county-level context (e.g., COVID-19 infection rates, unemployment rates) could help explain this relationship. The authors analyze the Understanding Coronavirus in America tracking survey, a nationally representative panel of American households, along with county-level contextual data. The authors find an n-shaped relationship between coethnic concentration and Asians’ perceived discrimination. This relationship is explained largely by county-level COVID-19 infection rates. Together, the context of medium Asian concentration and high COVID-19 cases created a particularly hostile environment for Asians during COVID-19.

A person-centered examination of acculturation and psychological functioning among Chinese and Korean immigrant mothers in the United States.

Objectives: The present research used a person-centered approach to examine the acculturation styles of Chinese and Korean immigrant mothers in the United States and demographic characteristics and psychological functioning associated with each acculturation style. Method: The sample comprised 240 first-generation Chinese immigrant mothers (CIMs; M = 37.80 years, SD = 4.55) and 222 first-generation Korean immigrant mothers (KIMs; M = 36.00 years, SD = 3.69) of preschool children. Latent profile analysis was used to identify latent acculturation styles among CIMs and KIMs. We further examined whether mothers' acculturation styles were associated with their sociodemographic characteristics and psychological functioning within each cultural group. Results: Four acculturation styles were revealed among CIMs: (a) behaviorally undifferentiated/psychologically assimilated, (b) behaviorally marginalized/psychologically separated, (c) behaviorally psychologically assimilated, and (d) behaviorally integrated/psychologically undifferentiated. Three acculturation styles were uncovered among KIMs: behaviorally psychologically separated, behaviorally psychologically assimilated, and behaviorally psychologically integrated. Chinese behaviorally integrated/psychologically undifferentiated mothers and Korean behaviorally psychologically separated perceived the highest levels of coethnic concentration in their communities. Chinese behaviorally marginalized/psychologically separated mothers reported poorer psychological functioning than other Chinese mothers. Korean behaviorally psychologically separated mothers had poorer psychological functioning than other Korean mothers. Conclusions: Findings revealed the significant role of participation in the American mainstream culture for Asian immigrant mothers' psychological adjustment. The heterogeneity in the acculturation experiences of Asian immigrants in the United States was highlighted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

When does hate hurt the most? Generational differences in the association between ethnic and racial harassment, ethnic attachment, and mental health

ABSTRACT Using data from Understanding Society, this paper provides a comprehensive account of the associations between ethnic and racial harassment (ERH), mental health and ethnic attachment for ethnic minorities living in England. We find an association between ERH and poor mental health measured using GHQ for ethnic minorities, even after controlling for a rich array of individual and area level characteristics. We find that ethnic attachment, measured as ethnic identity and co-ethnic friendship ties, moderates this association but solely for UK born ethnic minorities. In contrast to previous research, we further find that living in areas of high co-ethnic concentration appears to exacerbate the association between ERH and mental ill-health.

The Effects of Neighbourhood Disorder on Life Satisfaction of Ethnic Majority and Minority Group Members: Evidence From 12 Central-Eastern European Countries

While research has shown a negative relation between neighbourhood disorder and indicators of well-being, this evidence comes predominantly from Western European countries, relies on subjective measures of disorder, and is indifferent to ethnic specificities. In this paper, we examine the relationship between neighbourhood disorder and life satisfaction across neighbourhoods in 12 Central-Eastern European countries. We use an exogenous measure of disorder, and account for the presence of respondents’ own ethnic group in the neighbourhood, as we propose that it may condition the effect of disorder on life satisfaction. Using survey data covering 18,743 residents of 897 local areas across 12 countries, we found that neighbourhood disorder was negatively related to life satisfaction for both ethnic majority and minority respondents, over and above individual and neighbourhood characteristics. This effect was, however, differently moderated by ethnic in-group share in the neighbourhood for ethnic majorities and minorities. Among ethnic majority members, disorder had a negative effect on their life satisfaction only when there were high levels of co-ethnics' presence in the neighbourhood, but not at low levels. By contrast, for minority members, the negative effect of neighbourhood disorder was significant at lower of levels of co-ethnic concentration, but not at its higher levels. These results suggest that whereas for minority groups the presence of co-ethnics buffers the negative effects of the aversive environment on well-being, for ethnic majority members it plays an opposite role. We argue that members of the dominant, majority population find having to attribute disorder to their in-group problematic, which results in lower life satisfaction.

Long-term neighborhood ethnic composition and weight-related outcomes among immigrants: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

Weight among immigrants in the United States (US) is lower than among the US-born on average, but higher among long-term immigrants than the newly arrived. Neighborhood coethnic concentration-the proportion of neighborhood residents of the same ethnic background-may influence weight among immigrants via behavioral norms and market-driven community resources. However, the relevant exposure timeframe may be far longer than is captured by existing cross-sectional and short-term studies. Using detailed historical residential address information on 1449 older Latino and Chinese long-term immigrants, we investigated associations of 10-20-year neighborhood coethnic concentration trajectories with current waist circumference and weight-related behaviors (diet, physical activity, and sedentary time). Among Chinese participants, compared to persistent low coethnic concentration, increasing coethnic concentration was associated with higher waist circumference (difference = 1.45 cm [0.51, 2.39]). In contrast, both increasing coethnic concentration and persistent high coethnic concentration were associated with a healthier diet. Among Latino participants, trajectories characterized by higher coethnic concentration were associated with higher waist circumference (e.g., difference = 2.11 cm [0.31, 3.91] for persistent high vs. persistent low) and low physical activity. Long-term patterns of neighborhood coethnic concentration may affect weight-related outcomes among immigrants in complex ways that differ by ethnicity and outcome.

Do Extended Family Members Protect Children from Disadvantaged Neighborhoods? Focusing on Behavioral Problems of Children

The developmental–ecological model highlights the contextual environments that influence children’s emotional and behavioral adjustment. No previous research considers neighborhood characteristics when examining the influence of extended family members. This study investigates the characteristics of neighborhoods where extended family households reside, and the confounding and moderating effects of extended family household structure and the neighborhood influences of income and co-ethnic concentration levels. Data come from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study and the decennial census. The analytical sample includes 1553 children between the ages of 3 and 11 years, clustered in 1191 households in 65 census tracts. This study uses multilevel linear regression modeling. Extended family households are more likely than nuclear families to live in lower-income neighborhoods, but with similar proportions of co-ethnics. Children in extended family households show higher levels of both internalizing and externalizing behaviors compared to children in nuclear families, an effect not explained by their neighborhood environments. Extended family members moderate the neighborhood effects, boosting advantages within co-ethnic concentrated neighborhoods. With a higher proportion of co-ethnics in their neighborhoods, children in extended families show lower levels of externalizing behaviors compared to children in nuclear families. Co-resident extended family members not only predict child internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems but also moderate their neighborhood environments. This study provides policy implications, highlighting the potential of extended members to promote child development.

Co-ethnic concentration and trust in Canada’s urban neighbourhoods

This study investigates the relationship between the density of people’s ethno-racial in-group in their neighbourhoods (co-ethnic concentration) and trust in their neighbours. Previous studies demonstrate that ethno-racial diversity decreases trust in others, however, these studies rely on overly broad definitions of diversity and of trust, and often do not disaggregate the effects for Whites and ethno-racial minorities. Hence, this study examines the relationship between co-ethnic concentration and trust, focusing on how this relationship may change depending upon one’s ethno-racial status. Putnam’s (2007) analysis leads to a paradox in the sense that, according to the same principle that predicts declining trust amongst Whites, increasing diversity should lead to greater levels of trust for ethno-racial minorities whose share of the population increases with diversification. The findings demonstrate that there is a positive relationship between co-ethnic concentration and trust in neighbours and that this relationship holds for Whites as well as ethno-racial minorities.

Doing Good in the Neighborhood? The Effect of Coethnic Concentration on the Educational Attainment of Mexican, Filipino, and Vietnamese Children of Immigrants

An enduring puzzle in social science literature is that immigrants’ children belonging to Asian subgroups consistently outperform their Latino counterparts even after parents’ socioeconomic background is considered. These disparities may be explained by differences in the coethnic community. Using the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Data in California, this study quantitatively examines whether living with more coethnics affects the educational attainment of Mexican, Vietnamese, and Filipino children of immigrants. The results indicate that Vietnamese children benefit from living with a higher number of coethnics but Mexicans and Filipinos do not. The enduring Vietnamese effect may be attributed to underlying social characteristics of the Vietnamese community, such as their refugee status or norms about success. Overall, the effect of coethnic neighbors on education depends on immigrants’ aggregate characteristics.

Neighborhood ethnic composition, spatial assimilation, and change in body mass index over time among Hispanic and Chinese immigrants: Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

We investigated relations between changes in neighborhood ethnic composition and changes in body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference among Chinese and Hispanic immigrants in the United States. We used Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis data over a median 9-year follow-up (2000-2002 to 2010-2012) among Chinese (n = 642) and Hispanic (n = 784) immigrants aged 45 to 84 years at baseline. We incorporated information about residential moves and used econometric fixed-effects models to control for confounding by time-invariant characteristics. We characterized neighborhood racial/ethnic composition with census tract-level percentage Asian for Chinese participants and percentage Hispanic for Hispanic participants (neighborhood coethnic concentration). In covariate-adjusted longitudinal fixed-effects models, results suggested associations between decreasing neighborhood coethnic concentration and increasing weight, although results were imprecise: within-person BMI increases associated with an interquartile range decrease in coethnic concentration were 0.15 kilograms per meters squared (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.00, 0.30) among Chinese and 0.17 kilograms per meters squared (95% CI = -0.17, 0.51) among Hispanic participants. Results did not differ between those who did and did not move during follow-up. Residential neighborhoods may help shape chronic disease risk among immigrants.

The conditional returns to origin-country human capital among Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in Belgium

This study extends the analysis of the economic returns to pre-migration human capital by examining the role of the receiving context, co-ethnic residential concentration, and post-migration investments in human capital. It uses large-scale survey data on Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in Belgium. The analysis demonstrates that regarding employment, Moroccan immigrants, that is, those originating from former French colonies receive larger returns to their origin-country education and work experience in French- vs. Dutch-speaking regions. Other than the positive interaction effect between co-ethnic residential concentration and work experience on employment, there is little evidence that co-ethnic concentration increases the returns to origin-country human capital. Speaking the host-country language facilitates economic returns to origin-country work experience. Conversely, immigrants who acquire host-country credentials and work experience receive lower returns to origin-country education and experience, suggesting that, at least among low-skilled immigrants, pre- and post-migration human capital substitute rather than complement each other.

Ethnic Spatial Dispersion and Immigrant Identity

Ethnic groups tend to agglomerate and assemble, mostly in urban areas. While ethnic clustering is critically debated in societies and the consequences for economic outcomes are under debate in research, the process is not yet well understood. A separate literature has also examined the cultural and ethnic identity of immigrants and how these affect their economic performance and societal integration. However, an unexplored channel connects ethnic clustering with ethnic identity formation. Therefore this paper examines the role of ethnic geographic clustering in the sociocultural integration of immigrants. It employs survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, combined with disaggregated information at a low geographical level from the unexploited German full census of 1970 and 1987. We employ the exogenous placement of immigrants during their recruitment in the 1960s and 1970s and find that local co-ethnic concentration affects immigrants' cultural integration. Residential ethnic clustering strengthens immigrants' retention of an affiliation with their respective country of origin and weakens identification with the host society. The effects are nonlinear and only become significant at relatively high levels of co-ethnic concentration for the minority identity and at very low levels of local concentration for the majority identity. Our findings are robust to the use of an instrumental variable approach.

Living in neighborhoods with high or low co-ethnic concentration: Turkish–Norwegian-speaking students' vocabulary skills and reading comprehension

Immigrant students may use and develop language and literacy skills differently depending on the dominance of the first and second language (L1 and L2) in the neighborhoods where they live. In this study, neighborhood effects on students' reported language use at home and with peers, and on measured language and literacy proficiency, were investigated in a sample of 42 Turkish–Norwegian fifth-graders living in two cities in Norway. Differences were not found in the students' use of Turkish and Norwegian with family members, but the students living in the neighborhoods with co-ethnic concentration reported using more Turkish with peers across settings. Further, the students living in neighborhoods of more co-ethnics outperformed the students living in neighborhoods marked by fewer co-ethnics in Turkish proficiency, while students living in neighborhoods with fewer co-ethnics were more proficient in Norwegian vocabulary. An interesting finding was that in spite of differences in language use and vocabulary skills, there were no neighborhood effects on students' topic knowledge and L2 reading comprehension of content-area texts. Attending schools with many L1 peers may have offered access to L1-based information and topic knowledge (both through informal interactions and instruction in the L1) that supported the students' L2 content-area reading.

Family Obligation Across Contexts: Hispanic Youth in North Carolina and Southern California.

Over the past decade, the Hispanic population has grown in areas with little to no history of recent immigration. Prior research comparing Hispanics in new and established destinations has chiefly focused on differences in socioeconomic indicators of assimilation. Our paper departs from this work by shifting the focus to sociocultural outcomes. Specifically, we use data from Los Angeles and North Carolina to examine differences in the strength of family obligation (N=552). We find that demographic characteristics explain all of the geographic difference in family obligation between these locations. However, we also find that co-ethnic concentration is positively correlated with adolescents' endorsement of future family support, once ethnic identity is included in the analysis.

An Intergenerational Model of Spatial Assimilation in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia

This study uses data from the 2011 Australian census to test a spatial assimilation model of intergenerational concentration and dispersion involving 40 ethnic groups in Sydney and Melbourne. Multivariate statistical techniques are used to examine how acculturation and socio-economic characteristics predict ethnic residential concentration, measured by the index of dissimilarity. Findings support the thesis that ethnic clustering and dispersion reflect immigrant cultural and socio-economic adjustment to Australian life. Ethnic residential concentration is explained by Australian nativity, immigrant duration of residence, English proficiency, educational qualifications and unemployment. Findings are supported by a threshold analysis, which identifies a declining tendency, from the first to later generations, to live in areas of high coethnic concentration. An examination of outlier groups finds that unexplained factors appear to be slowing the spatial assimilation process for a few groups, consistent with a pluralism scenario. A major contribution of this study is its analysis of multiple ethnic groups across three generations and three time-of-arrival immigrant cohorts.

Rethinking Empirical Approaches to Racial Segregation

Within empirical approaches to racial residential segregation, there has been a tendency to draw on the work of or influenced by Robert E. Park and his ecological hypothesis to explore social and spatial relations between members of different ethnic and racial groups, thus framing research within a race relations paradigm. This has promoted an analysis which naturalizes racial differences but which also sidelines structural considerations. In turn this approach has also fed into political discourses on segregation, at times supporting more reactionary positions. This paper seeks to address this debate by considering whether emphasis on minority ethnic concentration sidelines the more pertinent issue of concentration in deprived areas, suggesting that neighbourhood deprivation as a measure can be more easily aligned with structural conditions which have influenced the settlement and historical experience of many ethnic minority communities. Specifically, I consider the extent to which a measure of neighbourhood deprivation is more important than the ethnic composition of an area for thinking about the distribution of inequalities in unemployment (as one example of socio-economic inequality). Using multilevel logistic regression I find neighbourhood income deprivation to be more important than levels of co-ethnic concentration for explaining ethnic differences in unemployment. The findings imply that neighbourhood deprivation is significantly more important for considering inequalities in unemployment for ethnic minorities than the ethnic composition of an area.

Effects of ethnic enclosure of neighborhoods, workplace, and industrial sectors on earnings

In this study, we extend prior work on how ethnic boundaries in specific contexts affect the earnings of racial and ethnic groups by simultaneously exploring how levels of ethnic enclosure, measured by co-ethnic concentration, of neighborhoods, workplaces, and industrial sectors, and their “moderating” effects on the earnings of six major recent racial and ethnic immigrant groups in the eight largest Canadian cities. The consideration of ethnic boundaries in multiple contexts portrays a more realistic picture of the effect of ethnic boundaries on earnings. The study helps us to understand how ethnic enclosure in various contexts affects the economic attainments of groups with higher proportions of immigrants. The study is based on 2006 Canadian census data. The findings show that most members of the six included racial/ethnic minority groups live and work in environments with high levels of ethnic enclosure. Besides, in general, the earnings of employees are negatively related to co-ethnic concentration in neighborhood and workplace, while the relationship with industrial co-ethnic concentration is not consistent. The earnings of employers are negatively related to co-ethnic concentration in the workplace only. The moderating effects of various co-ethnic contexts on earnings are mostly positive for both employers and employees, although they are more likely to be significant among employees. In addition, the findings show variations among the six groups.