Factors shaping workplace segregation between natives and immigrants

The research reported in this article was made possible in part through the financial support of the Estonian Research Council (Institutional Research Grant IUT2-17 on Spatial Population Mobility and Geographical Changes in Urban Regions); the Estonian Science Foundation (Grant No. 8774 and 9247); the NORFACE research program Migration in Europe―Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics (MIDI-REDIE); the EU Career Integration Grant (PCIG10-GA-2011-303728, call identifier FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG) (NBHCHOICE); and the Umeå SIMSAM Network―Register-based Research Program Connecting Childhood with Lifelong Health and Welfare funded by the Swedish Research Council (Grant No. 2008-28784-63564-191).Research on segregation of immigrant groups is increasingly turning its attention from residential areas toward other important places, such as the workplace, where immigrants can meet and interact with members of the native population. This article examines workplace segregation of immigrants. We use longitudinal, georeferenced Swedish population register data, which enables us to observe all immigrants in Sweden for the period 1990-2005 on an annual basis. We compare estimates from ordinary least squares with fixed-effects regressions to quantify the extent of immigrants' self-selection into specific workplaces, neighborhoods, and partnerships, which may bias more naïve ordinary least squares results. In line with previous research, we find lower levels of workplace segregation than residential segregation. The main finding is that low levels of residential segregation reduce workplace segregation, even after we take into account intermarriage with natives as well as unobserved characteristics of immigrants' such as willingness and ability to integrate into the host society. Being intermarried with a native reduces workplace segregation for immigrant men but not for immigrant women.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Inequality and rising levels of socio-economic segregation: lessons from a pan-European comparative study

The Socio-Economic Segregation in European Capital Cities: East Meets West project investigates changing levels of socio-economic segregation in 13 major European cities: Amsterdam, Budapest, Vienna, Stockholm, Oslo, London, Vilnius, Tallinn, Prague, Madrid, Milan, Athens and Riga. The two main conclusions of this major study are that the levels of socio-economic segregation in European cities are still relatively modest compared to some other parts of the world but that the spatial gap between poor and rich is widening in all capital cities across Europe. Segregation levels in the East of Europe started at a lower level compared to the West of Europe, but the East is quickly catching up, although there are large dif- ferences between cities. Four central factors were found to play a major role in the changing urban landscape in Europe: welfare and housing regimes, globalisation and economic restructuring, rising economic inequality and historical development paths. Where state intervention in Europe has long countered segregation, (neo) liberal transformations in welfare states, under the influence of globalisation, have caused an increase in inequality. As a result, the levels of socio-economic segrega- tion are moving upwards. If this trend were to continue, Europe would be at risk of slipping into the epoch of growing inequalities and segregation where the rich and the poor will live separate lives in separate parts of their cities, which could seriously harm the social stability of our future cities

Where the grass is greener: social segregation in three major Polish cities at the beginning of the 21st century

In Europe a range of segregation studies can be found in the North, West and South, but hardly any in Central Eastern Europe - a region where the major economic and political changes induced by the demise of socialism in 1989 contributed to new social divisions and related spatial patterns. However, these changes have not been uniform and have resulted in context-specific outcomes. Relying on data on the socio-occupational structure of the population from the National Census 2002 at the census tract scale, this article explores the levels and patterns of social segregation in three major Polish cities: Łódź, Cracow and Warsaw, urban areas that reflect divergent paths of more and less successful post-socialist transformations. This contribution concludes that, more than a decade after the demise of socialism, census tracts still generally contained populations that were heterogeneous with regard to socio-occupational status and that socioeconomic transformations in Poland and the social toll these processes involved have not yet been fully translated into intra-urban spaces

Socioeconomic segregation in European capital cities: Increasing separation between poor and rich

Socioeconomic inequality is on the rise in major European cities, as are concerns over it, since it is seen as a threat to social cohesion and stability. Surprisingly, relatively little is known about the spatial dimensions of rising socioeconomic inequality. This paper builds on a study of socioeconomic segregation in 12 European cities: Amsterdam, Athens, Budapest, London, Madrid, Oslo, Prague, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn, Vienna, and Vilnius. Data used derive from national censuses and registers for 2001 and 2011. The main conclusion is that socioeconomic segregation has increased. This paper develops a rigorous multifactor approach to understand segregation and links it to four underlying, partially overlapping, structural factors: social inequalities, globalization and economic restructuring, welfare regimes, and housing systems. Taking into account contextual factors resulted in a better understanding of actual segregation levels, while introducing time lags between structural factors and segregation outcomes will likely further improve the theoretical model