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Does Racism Affect a Migrant's Choice of Destination?

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  • Henry, Ruby

    (University of Toulouse I)

Abstract

I explicitly introduce racial conflict and cultural attitudes on racial diversity as determinants of destination choice to test their continued relevance to African Americans. I construct several measures of racial intolerance towards African Americans using hate crime activity and the feelings of white Americans about race extracted from a national social attitudes survey. Recognizing that African American migration may actually spawn hate crimes against them, I use a control function method with assaults on white police officers and hate crimes against Jews as instruments to correct for potential endogeneity. The results show that the probability of African American migrants choosing a city is significantly reduced by per capita hate crimes against them, the level of race-based crimes against them, by racially intolerant attitudes held by whites, and by poor evolution in whites' feelings about racial diversity ? all regardless of the region in which a city is located. Also striking is the previously undocumented divide among African Americans with respect to region, after controlling for racial intolerance. Those starting in the North exhibit an extreme distaste for the South at the margin, which contrasts sharply to the extreme taste for the South displayed by African Americans originating in the South.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry, Ruby, 2009. "Does Racism Affect a Migrant's Choice of Destination?," IZA Discussion Papers 4349, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4349
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    Cited by:

    1. Michaela Slotwinski & Alois Stutzer, 2019. "The deterrent effect of an anti-minaret vote on foreigners’ location choices," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 1043-1095, July.
    2. Besart Avdiu, 2018. "The Effect of Attitudes toward Migrants on Migrant Skill Composition," LIS Working papers 718, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Slotwinski, Michaela & Stutzer, Alois, 2015. "The Deterrent Effect of Voting Against Minarets: Identity Utility and Foreigners' Location Choice," IZA Discussion Papers 9497, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Gisela Waisman & Birthe Larsen, 2016. "Income, amenities and negative attitudes," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-32, December.
    5. Besart Avdiu, 2018. "The Effect of Attitudes toward Migrants on Migrant Skill Composition," CESifo Working Paper Series 6919, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    migration; discrimination; racial violence; conditional logit;
    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
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities

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