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Rental housing discrimination and the persistence of ethnic enclaves

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  • Mariano Bosch
  • M. Carnero
  • Lídia Farré

Abstract

We conduct a field experiment to show that discrimination in the rental market represents a significant obstacle for the residential mobility of immigrants and contributes to the ethnic residential segregation observed in large cities. We employ the Internet platform to identify vacant rental apartments in different areas of the two largest Spanish cities, Madrid and Barcelona. We send emails showing interest in the apartments and signal the applicants’ ethnicity by using native and foreign-sounding names. We find that, in line with previous studies, immigrants face a differential treatment when trying to rent an apartment. Our results also indicate that this negative treatment varies considerably with the share of immigrants in the area. In neighborhoods with a scarce presence of immigrants the response rate is 30 percentage points lower for immigrants than for natives, while this differential decays towards zero as the immigration share increases. This evidence indicates that discriminatory practices may perpetuate the spatial segregation of minority groups. Copyright The Author(s) 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Mariano Bosch & M. Carnero & Lídia Farré, 2015. "Rental housing discrimination and the persistence of ethnic enclaves," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 129-152, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:series:v:6:y:2015:i:2:p:129-152
    DOI: 10.1007/s13209-015-0122-5
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    Cited by:

    1. Verena Dill & Uwe Jirjahn & Georgi Tsertsvadze, 2015. "Residential Segregation and Immigrants’ Satisfaction with the Neighborhood in Germany," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(2), pages 354-368, June.
    2. Verena Dill & Uwe Jirjahn, 2011. "Ethnic Residential Segregation and Immigrants' Perceptions of Discrimination in West Germany," Research Papers in Economics 2011-10, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    3. Natera-Rivas Juan Jose & Larrubia-Vargas Remedios & Navarro-Rodríguez Susana, 2021. "Description of the Intramunicipal Habitat with Significant Concentrations of Foreign Population. The Case of the Province of Málaga (Spain)," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 52(52), pages 39-58, June.
    4. José M. Casado-Díaz & Raquel Simón-Albert & Hipólito Simón, 2022. "Reassessing the commuting penalty for immigrants: new evidence from Spain," Transportation, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1099-1132, August.
    5. Flage, Alexandre, 2018. "Ethnic and gender discrimination in the rental housing market: Evidence from a meta-analysis of correspondence tests, 2006–2017," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 251-273.
    6. Auspurg, Katrin & Schneck, Andreas & Thiel, Fabian, 2020. "Different samples, different results? How sampling techniques affect the results of field experiments on ethnic discrimination," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 0.
    7. Alexandre Flage, 2018. "Ethnic and Gender Discrimination in Rental Housing Market, Evidence from Meta-Analysis of Correspondence Tests, 2006-2017," Working Papers 2018-04, CRESE.
    8. Travis R Meyer & Daniel Balagué & Miguel Camacho-Collados & Hao Li & Katie Khuu & P Jeffrey Brantingham & Andrea L Bertozzi, 2019. "A year in Madrid as described through the analysis of geotagged Twitter data," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(9), pages 1724-1740, November.
    9. de la Rica, Sara & Glitz, Albrecht & Ortega, Francesc, 2013. "Immigration in Europe: Trends, Policies and Empirical Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 7778, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Verena Dill & Uwe Jirjahn, 2014. "Ethnic residential segregation and immigrants’ perceptions of discrimination in West Germany," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(16), pages 3330-3347, December.
    11. Cochard, François & Flage, Alexandre & Peterle, Emmanuel, 2019. "Intermediation and discrimination in an investment game: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 196-208.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; Discrimination; Ethnic residential segregation; J15; J61;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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