Immigration research for 6-22-18

How immigration reduced volunteering in the USA: 2005–2011
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In this study, we show that an inflow of immigrants reduces volunteering, a proxy of social capital investment, in receiving communities. Since the 1960s, there has been a large decrease in social capital in the USA as well as a considerable inflow of immigrants. This increased heterogeneity of US cities may have increased the cost of investing in social capital, and thereby, reduced such investment. By using the current population survey September Volunteer Supplement for 2005–2011, we examine the relationship between the proportion of foreign-born people and social capital investment by US-born individuals, proxied by volunteering. Once we correct for immigrants’ self-selection to different destinations using a supply–push instrumental variable, we find that a 1 standard deviation increase in the proportion of foreign-born individuals in a state reduces the probability of US-born individuals volunteering by 0.09–0.15 standard deviations and cuts number of hours volunteered by 0.13–0.21 standard deviations.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00168-017-0848-z

Immigration and the school system
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The model yields results that are consistent with central empirical regularities of the school effects of immigration: (1) there is a negative effect of immigrant pupils on native students; (2) the increasing shares of immigrant students are associated with the decline of school resources and quality; (3) the school performance of immigrant children is positively associated with immigration costs; and (4) school achievement increases in parental motivation and those immigrant children with highly motivated parents tend to outperform native children.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00199-017-1041-4

Farm mechanization on an otherwise ‘featureless’ plain: tractors on the Northern Great Plains and immigration policy of the 1920s [Immigration retards automation]
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The 1920s marked the beginning of the diffusion of the gasoline tractor in North American agriculture. The tractor was a labor-saving technology by virtue of its speed of operation, reducing labor input per acre. During the same decade, immigration policies of the USA and Canada diverged sharply. While the USA implemented immigration quotas, Canada admitted large flows of Eastern Europeans, provided their destination was the Prairie West... We show that although Canadian farmers had earlier adopted tractors at the same rate as farmers in the USA, the relatively slower rate of adoption of the tractor on the Canadian Prairies following the policy divergence can be attributed to Canada’s shift to a more open immigration policy.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11698-016-0157-2

The Body Mass Index Assimilation of US Immigrants: Do Diet and Exercise Contribute?
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Middle-aged immigrants exhibit poor behaviors consistent with unhealthy BMI gains. Worse diets may contribute to BMI increases among young immigrants who increase their intake of saturated fats. There are differences in behaviors by income, as poorer immigrants exhibit greater convergence to unhealthy native eating habits. Home country conditions influence dietary assimilation, with heterogeneity across Mexican and non-Mexican immigrants.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41302-017-0097-y
(Some bs from the article you dont have to add)
-Across all cohorts and age groups, the cohort fat consumption coefficients’ estimates are notably lower for immigrants compared to natives. Immigrants of the middle  and oldest age groups  ave a permanent difference of 20–40 percent lower fat consumption than natives.
-However, the rate of growth of fat consumption as immigrants reside in the USA is positive for all age groups and significant for the middle and oldest age groups at the 5 and 10 percent levels, respectively. For every ten years of stay, these immigrants increase their consumption of fats by an average of 6.6–6.8 percent. While middle and old age group immigrants increase their fats consumption significantly with stay, the results are less clear for the younger age group.
-For some cohorts, the initial gap vis-a`-vis natives is positive and for others it is negative, though all gaps are insignificant. Similarly, the rate of growth in
consumption of carbohydrates has different signs for different age groups and is also insignificant. These findings conform to the basic summary statistics in Table 1, which show no large differences in the average consumption of carbohydrates between natives and immigrants.
Assimilation by origin
-In general, these results suggest that Mexicans may already arrive with some aspects of the American diet, and other immigrants likely do not. Thus, in recent years when obesity has become a problem in North America and not other parts of the world, non-Mexican immigrants may be the source of the ‘‘healthy immigrant effect.’’
-Indeed the evidence that poorer immigrants and immigrants from source countries with significantly different diets from the USA were more likely to adopt unhealthy diets is consistent with young immigrants doing the same.
Assimilation by language
-Nutritional  information may not be conveyed correctly to those with limited English-language skills, and this could lead to adoption of poorer foods.
-Young non-English speakers exhibit statistically significant initial gaps in BMI and convergence, while English speakers do not. This result may be driven primarily by fat consumption, which follows a similar pattern. Physical activity models suggest that initial gaps are larger in size for non-English speakers.


Racial diversity, immigrants and the well-being of residents: evidence from US counties
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"The main purpose of this paper is to examine if one’s life satisfaction is associated with the racial compositions and immigration population in the county of residence. I find that a larger percentage of the population that is non-White lowers Whites’ life satisfaction. The finding is consistent with the view that Whites feel heightened status anxiety as they are not accustomed to the notion that they are in smaller numbers. Younger Whites seem to have favorable views toward racial minorities and immigrants, as I find that older Whites are less happy in racially diverse areas than their counterparts in more racially homogenous areas. Somewhat surprisingly, own-race preference increases with education for White men, and there is little evidence that White male high school dropouts in racially diverse areas feel worse off."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-017-0657-9

Cultural diversity and subjective well-being
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"This paper analyses the impact that diversity has on life satisfaction of people living in England. In England, and in many other countries, local communities are becoming more diverse in terms of country of birth, ethnicity and religion of residents, with unclear consequences on the well-being of people living in these communities. The results suggest that white British people living in diverse areas have on average lower levels of life satisfaction than those living in areas where diversity is low, while there is no correlation on average between diversity and life satisfaction for non-white British people and foreign born."
https://izajodm.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9039-3-13

As non-white population increases in an area, whites become more prejudiced (or rather, post-judiced since this is a result of exposure to nonwhites)
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"Previous research suggests that racial prejudice among Whites tends to increase with the percentage of the population that is non-White (Taylor 1998; Enos 2010; Stephens-Davidowitz 2014), and the 'racial threat' theory (Key 1949) predicts that Whites, who tend to be the majority group in most areas in the USA, feel worse off as the population of non-Whites increases... Empirical evidence seems to support the hypothesis. Taylor (1998) finds that Whites’ prejudice tends to increase with the local Black population share (though concentrations of local Asian American and Latino population do not engender White antipathy toward these groups). Enos (
2010) finds that White support for Obama has a negative relationship with the size of the Black population. Stephens-Davidowitz (2014), using Google search data, finds that racially charged search rate is higher in areas with higher proportions of Black residents."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-017-0657-9


Ethnic Diversity is associated with various negative outcomes
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"Previous studies have found that racial heterogeneity is associated with various outcomes, including reduced social solidarity, social capital, altruism, and community cooperation (Putnam 2007), lower participation in social activities (Alesina and La Ferrara 2000), and lower social trust (Alesina and La Ferrara 2002; Putnam 2007; Schmid et al. 2014). Glaeser et al. (2000) document experimentally that people of different races are more likely to cheat one another. DiPasquale and Glaeser (1998) find that racial heterogeneity is a significant determinant of rioting, while poverty in the community is not. Finally, perhaps not surprisingly, racial heterogeneity seems to be an important factor in how local policies are determined. Alesina et al. (2004) show that people prefer to form racially homogeneous political jurisdictions in the USA. Alesina et al. (1999) find that racially heterogeneous areas tend to spend a smaller fraction of their budget on social services and productive public goods, and more on crime prevention in the USA. Alesina et al. (2001) argue that one reason the US redistributes income less than racially homogenous European countries is that the majority of Americans believe that redistribution favors racial minorities. Similarly, Gilens (1999) finds that White Americans who overestimate the percent of the poor population that is Black are less likely to support welfare and view Blacks as lazy and undeserving."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-017-0657-9

Building walls or opening borders? Global immigration policy attitudes across economic, cultural and human security contexts
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Economic influences
-We found no evidence that economic context influences immigration attitudes, but individual socio-economic status is related to immigration attitudes.
-Our results demonstrate, middle income individuals express slightly more restrictionist attitudes that low income individuals and considerabley more restrictionist attitudes than high income individuals. Thus, while higher individual incomes operate as anticipated, reducing anti-immigration sentiment, the middle-income position may be the most precarious with regard to the experience of economic threat and the corresponding expression of anti-immigration policy attitudes.
-In essence, those with mid-level incomes may feel that they have a lot to lose by allowing immigration, while those with lower incomes may feel slightly less threatened in their socioeconomic positon.
-While classic economic threat conceptualizations understand group hostility to emanate highest from the bottom economic segment of a group, we instead find opposition to be highest in the middle earner category. One interpretation for this point of distinction for respondents from the middle of the economic distribution is that it owes to middle earners occupying a position that can be potentially lost—and yet a position not so high as to come with a sense of security.
-In general, both the context of national economic inequality, as well as an individual’s economic position, influence an oppositional sentiment toward immigration.
Social Influences
-An increase in the percentage of immigrants is associated with a decrease in restrictionist attitudes. This finding may offer support for contact theories of immigration. Alternately, it may relate to public narratives around immigrants and immigration.
-Individuals who express a great deal of national pride and see themselves as members of a local or national imagined community are more likely than more globally oriented individuals to express restrictive immigration attitudes.
-In contrast to the mixed findings for macro-level economic and socio-cultural predictors, terrorist events operate as “big events,” à la Blumer, and demonstrate a consistent association with restrictionist immigration attitudes.
-Indeed, our study finds that recent terrorist events are among the most consistent macro-level predictors of anti-immigration policy attitudes and the effect of terrorism on attitudes is consistent across countries.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X1730618X



Singapore's Housing and Development Board's integration policy [Policy forces ethnic quotas for neighborhoods and essentially "bans" enclaves]
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-After the 1969 Malay-Chinese race riots, the HDB allocated new flats in a manner that would mix the different races in the new housing estates. Then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew explained that this “prevented them from congregating, as they had been encouraged to do by the British”
-However, by the mid-1980s, a trend of Malay ethnic regrouping through the resale market was identified as a social problem that could, over time, lead to the re-emergence of ethnic  enclaves.
-In Bedok and Tampines HDB housing estates, Malay households made up more than 30% of the estate population. Chua (2017) points to this spatial concentration as a valuable political material resource—a “home turf ” as well as a vote bank to be mobilized to elect the group’s own race candidates.
-In 1989, the government moved pre-emptively to implement an Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) under which racial limits were set for the HDB blocks and neighbourhoods. These quotas limit the proportion of flats in a block and in a neighbourhood that can be owned by a particular race.
-As a result of the EIP (ethnic integration policy) that was introduced in 1989, residents of multiracial Singapore live in racially integrated housing estates. The desired policy outcome is that there should be no ethnic enclaves within HDB blocks and neighbourhoods where a minority group constitutes a majority. As the Chinese are a majority, the EIP ensures a Chinese majority in every block and neighbourhood. The government has consistently defended such social “engineering” through the HDB EIP as having contributed to the integration of the different races and social stability of Singapore.
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-75349-2

Immigration and the Environment
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"Urbanization, suburbanization, and population pressure are all factors that have been found to exacerbate air pollution (Cole and Neumayer 2004; Cramer 1998, 2002; Dietz and Rosa 1997; Shi 2003)... [Immigrants have less of an impact on the environment than natives.] However, long-term longitudinal analyses are needed to assess any possible delayed effects of immigration on the environment that could emerge, for example through higher fertility rates of immigrants (Carter 2000; Johnson and Lichter 2008) or as immigrant families adopt more ‘‘Americanized’’ lifestyles and ecological footprints (Hunter 2000a).
(Info from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11113-011-9216-3)

Residential Segregation
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-Segregation often generates social concern, particularly when the segregated group is of low socio-economic status. Empirical studies, including a few based on randomized mobility experiments, suggest that there are negative consequences of growing up in an enclave neighbourhood.
-Cutler et al. (2005) present further data indicating that the rise in average segregation can be attributed primarily to the growth of groups that have always experienced high segregation, rather than to the increasing segregation of individual groups.
-The growing, highly segregated groups generally originate in less developed countries and gravitate toward the largest cities in the United States.
-The ‘spatial mismatch’ hypothesis contends that segregation reduces the average income of certain groups to the extent that their residential enclaves are located at some distance from growing employment centres (Kain 1968). Segregation may also lead to differences in education quality across racial or ethnic groups, to the extent that schooling is tied to residential location
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2195