Co-ethnic Networks Research Articles

Social participation and depression among resettled Syrian refugees: examining a moderated mediation of social support and bonding or bridging social capital.

Aspects of social capital, including social participation and social support, are among the factors influencing refugee mental health after resettlement. However, the mechanisms by which these aspects interact with one another and affect mental health remain unclear. This study investigates whether social participation influences depressive symptoms via social support and whether this influence is more prominent for Syrian refugees participating primarily in coethnic (bonding) networks compared to cross-ethnic (bridging) networks during the early stages of resettlement. Using data from a cohort of 464 Syrian refugees recently resettled in Sweden, a moderated mediation analysis was conducted with multigroup structural equation modelling to investigate the mediatory role of social support in the association between social participation and depressive symptoms as well as the moderating role of bonding networks (social participation with other Syrians) versus bridging networks (social participation with Swedes) in this relationship. Frequent social participation, compared to rare or no participation, was significantly associated with lower depressive symptoms, regardless of whether participation included a broad or limited range of activities. Social support only mediated this relationship for those with primarily bonding networks, indicating that the mediation itself was moderated by network type. While participating in both bridging and bonding networks was associated with lower depressive symptoms, bonding networks amplified the effect of social participation on depressive symptoms via increased social support, resulting in an overall twofold decrease in depressive symptoms compared to those with bridging networks. These findings indicate that the frequency of social participation may be a more important consideration for fostering mental well-being in recently resettled refugees than the specific types of activities. Furthermore, while both bonding and bridging social networks confer mental health benefits, access to coethnic networks in early resettlement appears to provide a particularly crucial source of social support.

Immigrants, legal status, and illegal trade

Nearly $2 trillion of illegally trafficked goods flow across international borders every year, generating violence and other social costs along the way. Due to the absence of legal contracts and the challenge of finding trading partners in an illegal market, traffickers may rely on co-ethnic networks to facilitate trade. In this paper, I use novel microdata on the universe of large illegal drug confiscations in Spain to provide the first causal estimates of how immigrants and immigration policy affect the pattern and scale of illegal drug trafficking. I find that immigrants increase both illegal drugs imported from and exported to their origin country, with irregular immigrants raising illegal drug imports. Doubling the number of immigrants from an origin country raises the likelihood of illegal drug imports from that country by 8 percentage points. I find suggestive evidence that granting legal status to immigrants reduces illegal drug imports.

Embeddedness in complex networks: Theoretical central debate, policy implications, and research agenda in ethnic entrepreneurship

Objective: This article explores ethnic entrepreneurship as an emerging organizational phenomenon, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview through a systematic literature review. Method: Triangulation employed bibliometric analysis, network analysis, citation and co-citation analysis, co-citation network, and a meta-analysis of bibliometrics over the period. It also includes content analysis demonstrating study characteristics, key findings, and suggestions for future research. Key Findings: The crucial role of ethnic networks in identity valorization and overcoming obstacles, exerting a moderating influence on entrepreneurial decisions, was identified. Furthermore, a broader theoretical framework for understanding the ethnic entrepreneurship phenomenon is synthesized. Theoretical/Methodological Contributions: A combined method of analyses is employed, offering an approach that can be adopted by similar research. The theoretical framework in which ethnic entrepreneurship studies are anchored is presented, emphasizing social immersion, co-ethnic network building, and Economic Sociology. Relevance/Originality: In a growing global migration movement, individuals have become entrepreneurs in the pursuit of ethnic valorization, equality, and survival. They face various barriers in host countries, influencing the decision to undertake entrepreneurship and their business. This study fills a gap by elucidating how research explains the interplay of these emerging phenomena. Social/Management Contributions: The article identifies future directions for ethnic entrepreneurship research, addressing crucial issues such as gender, network construction, financing, international refugee policies, public policies, ethnicity, ethnic markets, marginalization, and prejudice. Its conclusions offer valuable insights for managers, researchers, and policymakers.

Bound by ancestors: Immigration, credit frictions, and global supply chain formation

This paper shows that the ancestry composition shaped by century-long immigration to the US can explain the current structure of global supply chains. Using an instrumental variable strategy combined with a novel dataset that links firm-to-firm global supply chains with their location information and historical migration data, we find that the co-ethnic networks have a positive causal impact on global supply chain relationships between foreign countries and US counties. The positive impact not only exists in supplier–customer relationships but also extends to strategic partnerships and trade in services. The positive impact is stronger in counties in which a larger number of firms are credit constrained, and such a stronger effect becomes even more pronounced when foreign firms are located in countries with weak contract enforcement. The results suggest that co-ethnic networks serve as social collateral to overcome credit constraints and facilitate global supply chain formation.

Labor market integration, local conditions and inequalities: Evidence from refugees in Switzerland

The paper examines the patterns of economic integration of refugees in Switzerland, a country with a long tradition of hosting refugees, a top-receiving host in Europe, and a prominent example of a multicultural society. It relies on a unique longitudinal dataset consisting of administrative records and social security data for the universe of refugees in Switzerland over 1998–2018. This data is used to reconstruct the individual-level trajectories of refugees and to follow them since arrival over the life-cycle. The empirical analysis exploits the government dispersal policy in place since 1998, which consists of the exogenous allocation of refugees across cantons, to identify the effects of the local initial conditions. The study finds that higher unemployment rates at arrival slow down the integration process, whereas the existence of a co-ethnic network does not consistently lead to a faster integration. It is shown that a change toward more restrictive attitudes over time in a canton (relative to attitudes in other cantons) leads to higher employment rates of the successive refugee cohorts. These effects persist over the refugees’ life-cycle. Together these results, highlight the importance of taking a longer run perspective when examining the effectiveness of policies, as the effects may vary over time and different complementary interventions may be needed in the short vs. long-run.

Goa to Paris: migration trajectories, settlement struggles, and social networks

ABSTRACT The research presented contributes to the literature on migrant settlement and social capital and to the growing body of literature on Goan migration. Previous studies on outflows from Goa bring out the distinctiveness of the migratory movement toward Portugal, East Africa, and the Gulf, but do not engage with settlement in France. Through an ethnographic study, we seek to understand how Goans have leveraged the social networks they connected with in Paris and Goa to their advantage in migration and settlement. Despite overwhelming evidence pointing to co-ethnic networks at play in job assistance and adaptation to host society requirements, the findings subtly underline the increasing relevance of diverse social networks in the Goa-Paris migration story. The French connections are nuanced via references to network subsets stemming from colonial legacy or bridging initiatives in Paris. Goan networks, even when robust, announce faint signs of erosion due to internal frictions.

Irregular Migrant Workers and Health: A Qualitative Study of Health Status and Access to Healthcare of the Filipino Domestic Workers in Mainland China.

In public health research, the health issues of irregular and vulnerable migrant populations remain under-explored. In particular, while mainland China has become a new and popular job-seeking destination for Filipino domestic workers (FDWs), the health status of FDWs and their access to healthcare have been invisible to public and academic concerns. This paper fills this lacuna by conducting a qualitative study that investigates FDWs’ self-reported health status and their healthcare-seeking behaviors. The results show that: (1) respondents do not report significant abusive and exploitative experience because the scarcity of FDWs in China in relation to the high demand enables them a certain degree of agency in labour market; (2) while FDWs do report some health problems, they tend to resort to self-medication and food-healing; (3) the main factors influencing health-seeking behavior include the fear of deportation, language gaps, the lack of knowledge of the local healthcare system and dependence on co-ethnic networks which serves as a double-edged sword; (4) these factors also lead to hesitation in health-seeking choice between public and private hospitals, which sometimes result in delayed treatment. This paper contributes to revealing the health conditions of FDWs in mainland China and calls for more inclusive health policy to enroll foreign domestic workers into the local health system in China.

Migration contexts in shaping community ethnic resources: a Forms of Capital approach on ethnic migrant entrepreneurs in Malaysia

PurposeThis paper aims to refine the concept of community/ethnic resources for migrant communities by focusing on the way ethnic migrant entrepreneurs (EMEs) use co-ethnic-based (CEB) resources in their entrepreneurial activities, taking into account their migration contexts. Migrants are usually considered as disadvantaged individuals given their restricted opportunities in the labor market and in the business arena; thus, they rely on ethnic resources for survival in the host country.Design/methodology/approachThrough Bourdieu’s (1986) forms of capital model, the authors compare the experiences of EMEs from three migrant communities in Malaysia (specifically, the Indonesian, Pakistani and South Korean communities) with regard to their ethnic resources. The authors used a qualitative approach in analyzing our data, which includes interview narratives with 41 individuals consisting of EMEs, community leaders, embassy representatives and trade experts.FindingsThis study’s findings indicate that migration contexts influence the differences in the way ethnic resources are used by EMEs. The findings are synthesized into a framework of ethnic resources within the context of ethnic migrant entrepreneurship.Research limitations/implicationsAdopting a qualitative approach was useful in studying the subject, but the findings are still limited within the context of the study. As such, future research is encouraged to test the proposed framework and examine the underexplored aspects of migration in influencing the utilization of ethnic resources for entrepreneurial migrant communities.Practical implicationsA practical implication of this paper lies in the illustration of migrants’ usage of alternative routes for resources through co-ethnic networks, which is useful for policymakers and businesses focusing on migration and trade.Originality/valueThis framework contributes to the discourse of ethnic migrant entrepreneurship through further clarifying aspects shaping the utilization of community ethnic resources.

Talents and Cultures: Immigrant Inventors and Ethnic Diversity in the Age of Mass Migration

Abstract We investigate the importance of co-ethnic networks and diversity in determining immigrant inventors’ settlements in the United States by following the location choices of thousands of them across counties during the Age of Mass Migration. To do so, we combine a unique United States Patent and Trademark Office historical patent dataset on immigrants who arrived as adults with Census data and exploit exogenous variation in both immigration flows and diversity induced by former settlements, WWI, and the 1920s Immigration Acts. We find that co-ethnic networks play an important role in attracting immigrant inventors. Yet, we also find that immigrant diversity acts as an additional significant pull factor. This is mainly due to externalities that foster immigrant inventors’ productivity.

Impacts of co-ethnic networks and socioeconomic factors on immigrants’ residence choice in Tokyo: A dynamic spatial panel analysis

Impacts of co-ethnic networks and socioeconomic factors on immigrants’ residence choice in Tokyo: A dynamic spatial panel analysis

The Advantage of Transnational Coethnic Networks

Abstract This is a case study of the cross-ethnicization and globalization of an ethnic food by entrepreneurial Korean Chinese. Korean Chinese (also referred to as Joseonjok or Chaoxianzu) in China came from a strong agricultural background with little tradition of commerce and no tradition of consuming lamb meat. However, when Xinjiang-style barbecue-lamb skewers were introduced to their community in the early 1980s, Korean Chinese fell in love with this exotic food. Soon, Korean Chinese entrepreneurs began opening their own barbecue-lamb-skewer restaurants. Within the next two decades, they transformed this humble street food into a luxurious gourmet food through various innovative measures. They also globalized the barbecue-lamb-skewer business by expanding it to other cities in China, South Korea, Japan, the United States and beyond. Based on fieldwork conducted in Korean Chinese communities in China, South Korea and Japan, we found that their transnational coethnic networks were the key behind this intriguing success in ethnic entrepreneurialism. This paper explores how the Korean Chinese developed their transnational coethnic networks, and how these networks contributed to this formerly non-coethnic lamb-skewer business.

Co-ethnic networks and inter-provincial migration destination choice of ethnic minority migrants in China

ABSTRACT Previous research shows that co-ethnic networks are an important factor in explaining the concentrated pattern of distribution of ethnic minority migrants. This study uses pooled data from the National Migrant Dynamics Monitoring Survey, to examine the role co-ethnic networks play in ethnic minorities’ inter-provincial migration destination choices and how it is moderated by education in China. Conditional logit models reveal that except for Manchus, ethnic minority migrants are more likely to go to provinces with large co-ethnic networks. There are also group differences in the effect of co-ethnic network size, with it being greater for Tibetans and Dong than for the rest of minority groups in the study. It is further found that higher levels of education reduce the effect of co-ethnic networks on Tibetan and Korean migrants’ destination choice. For the rest of the ethnic minority groups in the study, education’s moderating effect is either positive or not statistically significant.

Financial Ambidexterity of the Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Boundary Work and Behavioral Complexity

A considerable amount of research describes the limited financing choices of Immigrant entrepreneurs (IEs) in hosting countries, and the various challenges they face in accessing the necessary resources out of their co-ethnic networks. However, little is known about how IEs, at their startup level, make it to survive these financing challenges in hosting countries. Therefore, this paper theoretically argues IEs to acquire certain level of financial ambidexterity in order to overcome their financing struggle in hosting countries. Namely, their ability to flexibly switch their exploration and exploitation for formal and informal financing between the multiple contexts where they are embedded. Thus, the paper proposes four mechanisms to derive the IEs’ financial ambidexterity, and argues boundary work and acquisitions of a behavioral complexity to be the decisive driver for the IEs’ financial ambidexterity. Finally, the paper discusses different theoretical contributions, in addition to empirical and practical implications for future research.

The Relationship between Ethno-Linguistic Composition of Social Networks and Activity Space: A Study Using Mobile Phone Data

This study is a contribution to the discussion on the ethnic segregation cycle, through the examination of individuals’ activity spaces—including residence and workplace—and from the perspective of social networks. Bridging social ties can be a key factor in higher minority inclusion and in breaking the vicious circle of segregation. We compare the spatial behaviour of two ethno-linguistic population groups living in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital city (Estonian-speaking majority and Russian-speaking minority), each of which have co- and interethnic social networks, through the use of mobile positioning (call detail records) and call-graph data. Among our main findings, we show firstly that interethnic social networks are more common for the Russian-speaking minority population. The probability of having an interethnic network is related to the ethno-linguistic composition of the residential district concerned; districts with a higher proportion of residents from another ethnic group tend to favour interethnic networks more. Secondly, the activity space is related to the ethno-linguistic composition of the social networks. Spatial behaviour is most expansive for Estonian speakers with co-ethnic networks, and most constrained for Russian speakers with co-ethnic networks. At the same time, speakers of Estonian and Russian with interethnic networks show rather similar spatial behaviours: They tend to visit more districts where the proportion of people from the other ethno-linguistic group is higher. Interethnic networks are therefore related to spatial behaviour, which can indicate interethnic meeting points and locations, something that is regarded as being important in assimilation and segregation cycle theories.

What is career success? A new Asian American psychology of working.

Model minority stereotypes of Asian Americans as high educational and occupational achievers are perpetuated by conceptual and methodological issues in career development research that aggregate across Asian ethnicities and oversample high achievers. These issues render those marginalized, such as working-class immigrants with limited English proficiency, as well as their children, as invisible within research, practice, and policy. A new theoretical framework, entitled the Asian American Intergenerational Model of Psychology of Working (AAIM), questions the mainstream career development assumptions of linearity, stability, and upward mobility that reveal inherent classism. Building on the Psychology of Working Theory (Duffy et al., 2016); the AAIM broadens the scope and definition of work beyond career, and acknowledges the significance of structural and cultural forces on people's work and life. An expanded qualitative analysis of interviews with 17 low-income, working-class, Chinese immigrant parents (Tu et al., 2019) provides an empirical illustration of the intergenerational and coethnic dynamics of vocational experiences central to the AAIM. The working-class immigrants relied on coethnic networks to secure employment within a narrow range of options, many straddling helplessly between arduous manual labor and family demands. Though they had immigrated primarily to provide a better future for their children, many parents struggled to participate meaningfully in their children's development. These findings highlight the need to expand Asian American psychology of working to incorporate systems and social justice perspectives. Research, practice, and policy implications of AAIM advocate for maximal inclusivity and offer directions to address invisibility of the most marginalized and disenfranchised Asian American workers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Dynamic Effects of Co-Ethnic Networks on Immigrants’ Economic Success

Abstract In this paper we investigate how co-ethnic networks affect the economic success of immigrants. Using longitudinal data of immigrants in Germany and including a large set of fixed effects and pre-migration controls to address the possible endogeneity of initial location, we find that immigrants in districts with larger co-ethnic networks are more likely to be employed soon after arrival. This advantage fades after four years, as migrants located in places with smaller co-ethnic networks catch up due to greater human capital investments. These effects appear stronger for lower-skilled immigrants, as well as for refugees and ethnic Germans.

The Contexts of Spiritual Seeking: How Ghanaians in the United States Navigate Changing Normative Conditions of Religious Belief and Practice

AbstractTwo concurrent agendas in the sociology of religion explore how conditions of secularism in the United States result in widespread norms of “spiritual seeking”, and how religion functions as a basis of belonging for U.S. immigrants. This study brings these subfields together by asking whether new immigrants from Ghana, West Africa, also exhibit an orientation of spiritual seeking in their religious trajectories, and how they engage with normative conditions of spiritual seeking within institutional contexts. I find strong evidence of spiritual seeking in their narratives, and I identify processes within the social institutions of family and coethnic networks, higher education, and African Evangelical Christianity that support a seeking orientation. I argue for more focus on the counter-impulses of seeking versus dwelling in immigrant religion, and that more studies of religion and culture should explicitly analyze the institutional contexts that mediate between normative culture and trajectories of social practice.

Lives in limbo: Migrant integration and rural governance in Sweden

Two long-term trends characterized the response to the influx of asylum seekers in rural Sweden in 2015. First, current integration policies with an increasing focus on the individual migrant, especially in relation to education, employment and housing, provided the framework for the response. Second, the shift of rural governance from state control to collaborative arrangements with nonstate actors, enabled the unprecedented involvement of civil society in the reception and integration of asylum-seekers in rural areas. The consequences of the confluence of these two approaches are most visible in rural areas. In this paper, we explore the new landscape of collaborative governance in relation to migrant reception and integration and ask: what kind of space for maneuver might be available for migrants in the context of collaborative governance of integration in rural Europe? We argue that the new context of rural governance in tandem with integration policies focusing on individual migrants/ families rather than also considering group and ethnic belongings can leave newcomers at the mercy of an informal and unknown institutional terrain of collaborative governance, one that can exacerbate their vulnerability and lead to a situation of “double isolation”- from co-ethnic networks as well as from local society.

Disparity in the progress of ethnic Indian enterprises: a study on transgenerational succession in Malaysia

ABSTRACT This article examines the effect of academic qualifications and networking ties towards the evolvement of micro, small-medium, and large ethnic Indian enterprises in Malaysia. The study is based in multicultural Malaysia, where certain policies were implemented in favor of one specific ethnicity. Research indicates that better academic qualifications through transgenerational succession affect how entrepreneurs form connections with their families, co-ethnic networks, and inter-ethnic networks to develop their businesses. This article explains that while micro and smaller firms are choosing to remain in their ethnic identity, medium and larger corporations are willing to shed their ethnic identity for the rapid growth of their businesses. A framework is built from the understanding of literature and past evidence on ethnic Indian entrepreneurship in Malaysia. This article demonstrates the disparities of Malaysian Indian businesses that have progressed differently over the generations, due to the impact of human and social capital.

Migrant mothers and the ambivalence of co-ethnicity in online communities

ABSTRACT Since the advent of digital and mobile communication technologies, scholars have been investigating how these technologies are changing experiences of migration and mobility. In the field of gender and migration, researchers have shown how the experience of migration can change maternal practices, and alter understandings of ‘good motherhood’. These ‘digital migrant’ and ‘migrant motherhood’ literatures have intersected in studies of technologically mediated transnational mothering, in the context of mother–child separation. In contrast, this study focuses on migrant mothers in Australia who are co-located with their children. Drawing on interviews with migrant mothers from a range of migrant communities in Sydney and Melbourne, this article explores how the use of online migrant maternal communities helps women to navigate motherhood in a migrant context. Specifically, it draws attention to the ways migrant mothers use the affordances of social media to work through their complex and ambivalent feelings about their migrant maternal identities and practices, and about co-ethnic social networks. The paper foregrounds the role of the imagination and relationships in shaping migrant identities and experiences and proposes the ‘migrant maternal imaginary’ as a valuable concept for understanding migrant motherhood.