TY - JOUR

T1 - Ethno-religious neighbourhood infrastructures and the life satisfaction of immigrants and their descendants in Germany

AU - Wiedner, Jonas

AU - Schaeffer, Merlin

AU - Carol, Sarah

N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We gratefully acknowledge the financial support for the WELLMOB project from the German Research Foundation (DFG) (project number 422620400). Publisher Copyright: © Urban Studies Journal Limited 2022.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Urban research assigns immigrant enclaves an ambiguous role. While such areas are seen as rich in beneficial ethno-religious infrastructures and networks, they also tend to be located in deprived and stigmatised inner-city neighbourhoods. Research on neighbourhood attainment provides evidence for both, a desire to attain mainstream middle-class neighbourhoods, which grows the more immigrants and their descendants establish themselves in society, but also a continuing attraction of residing close to co-ethnics. To tease apart this ambiguity, we study how the life satisfaction of immigrants and their descendants depends on the characteristics of the neighbourhood they live in, and pay special attention to heterogeneity along generation, country of origin orientation and income. We use classic measures of neighbourhood quality vis-à-vis newly collected data on the spatial density of ethno-religious minority associations, places of worship and grocers. We link these data to the geocoded German Socio-Economic Panel to predict life satisfaction among immigrants and their descendants. To strengthen a causal interpretation of our results, we employ specifications that address self-selection into neighbourhoods and unobserved confounding. Contra the assumptions of standard assimilation models, we document that ethno-religious infrastructures contribute to increased life satisfaction primarily among the second generation, and there especially among sending-country oriented individuals. This suggests a continuing importance of origin-culture infrastructures for some groups. Furthermore, we find little evidence that overall neighbourhood quality, or the mere share of co-ethnics in a neighbourhood, increases life satisfaction either among immigrants or their descendants.

AB - Urban research assigns immigrant enclaves an ambiguous role. While such areas are seen as rich in beneficial ethno-religious infrastructures and networks, they also tend to be located in deprived and stigmatised inner-city neighbourhoods. Research on neighbourhood attainment provides evidence for both, a desire to attain mainstream middle-class neighbourhoods, which grows the more immigrants and their descendants establish themselves in society, but also a continuing attraction of residing close to co-ethnics. To tease apart this ambiguity, we study how the life satisfaction of immigrants and their descendants depends on the characteristics of the neighbourhood they live in, and pay special attention to heterogeneity along generation, country of origin orientation and income. We use classic measures of neighbourhood quality vis-à-vis newly collected data on the spatial density of ethno-religious minority associations, places of worship and grocers. We link these data to the geocoded German Socio-Economic Panel to predict life satisfaction among immigrants and their descendants. To strengthen a causal interpretation of our results, we employ specifications that address self-selection into neighbourhoods and unobserved confounding. Contra the assumptions of standard assimilation models, we document that ethno-religious infrastructures contribute to increased life satisfaction primarily among the second generation, and there especially among sending-country oriented individuals. This suggests a continuing importance of origin-culture infrastructures for some groups. Furthermore, we find little evidence that overall neighbourhood quality, or the mere share of co-ethnics in a neighbourhood, increases life satisfaction either among immigrants or their descendants.

KW - community

KW - life satisfaction

KW - migration

KW - neighbourhood

KW - race/ethnicity

U2 - 10.1177/00420980211066412

DO - 10.1177/00420980211066412

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85124354155

VL - 59

SP - 2985

EP - 3004

JO - Urban Studies

JF - Urban Studies

SN - 0042-0980

IS - 14

ER -