Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/67295 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 6939
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
It is widely debated whether immigrants who live among co-ethnics are less willing to integrate into the host society. Exploiting the quasi-experimental guest worker placement across German regions during the 1960/70s as well as information on immigrants' inter-ethnic contact networks and social activities, we are able to identify the causal effect of ethnic concentration on social integration. The exogenous placement of immigrants switches off observable and unobservable differences in the willingness or ability to integrate which have confounded previous studies. Evidence suggests that the presence of co-ethnics increases migrants' interaction cost with natives and thus reduces the likelihood of integration.
Subjects: 
immigrants
integration
enclaves
political participation
culture
social interaction
guest workers
natural experiment
JEL: 
J15
R23
J61
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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