Ethnic Enclaves, Economic and Political Threat: An Investigation With the European Social Survey.

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.

Does the ethno-religious diversity of a neighbourhood affect the perceived health of its residents?

Concerns about the diversification of Britain, and its impact on social capital and health are widely debated. The literature has however produced a fuzzy discourse, full of assumptions and claims that are rarely tested. We attempt to disentangle some of these assumptions by providing empirical evidence on the mediating and moderating influence of inter-ethnic conflict and contact, and examine whether they underlie the erosion of health among minorities and white British respondents residing in diverse local areas. Analyses were conducted using multilevel models that relied on geocoded data from a random stratified sample of adults 16-75 years collected in the 2009-2011 Citizenship Survey merged to small area aggregated statistics from the 2011 UK census. The final sample comprised of minorities (n = 13,236) and white British (n = 15,021) residing in England. We find that local area deprivation matters much more for the health of minorities and whites than diversity. Yet, residing in diverse areas can be problematic for whites if it is accompanied by high levels of social distance measured by negative attitudes towards immigrants. Greater contact among minorities and whites, residing in more diverse areas appears to have no significant effect on health. Overall, the findings supported our hypothesis that residing in areas of greater diversity has a differential impact on minorities when compared to whites. In particular, diversity appear to be more beneficial for minorities, especially newly arriving migrants. The effect of contact as measured by social capital is dwarfed in comparison to the effect of deprivation, underlying the importance for policy makers to tackle structural inequalities.

Diversity and the Civic Spirit in British Neighbourhoods: An Investigation with MCDS and EMBES 2010 Data.

Recently, there has been a proliferation of studies investigating the relationship between diversity and outcomes such as social cohesion and civic mindedness. This article addresses several common problems in this field and, using data for British neighbourhoods, elaborates on the experiences of both white British and ethnic minority respondents. We conclude that, if anything, diversity should be encouraged to cement the integration progress of migrants and foster stronger identification with Britain in the second generation. Deprivation at the neighbourhood level along with individual factors such as fear of crime is a much stronger predictor of deterioration of the civic spirit than diversity. Bridging contacts have the expected strong positive association with cohesion outcomes; and contrary to policy concerns no strong negative impact is observed for associational bonding among minority ingroupers.