Events

This paper examines the links between residential segregation and the spatial distribution of kin in Stockholm, Sweden. Residential segregation between native Swedes and new immigrants is established when immigrants first settle in Sweden. This creates disparities in the spatial distribution of kin for immigrant children compared to native Swedes. Kinship ties may contribute to the reproduction of segregation across generations if children move to maintain proximity to family when making residential choices in adulthood. The paper investigates this segregating mechanism using detailed, longitudinal, geocoded residential history data from Swedish population registers 1990-2012. The analysis focuses on native Swedes and the children of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, the most segregated groups in Stockholm. Discrete choice models are used to estimate the effects of kin on residential mobility for cohorts of native Swedes and Sweden-raised children of immigrants, born between 1970-1990. The estimates are used in counterfactual simulations of residential mobility and segregation. Proximity to kin effects accounts for between 40% and 70% of the variation in segregation across simulations for children of immigrants, but relatively little for those of Swedish ancestry. Instead, young Swedish adults’ propensities to move to neighborhoods with higher Swedish representation account for much of their segregation from non-Western immigrants.

The Sociology Seminar Series is convened by Lucie Kalousova, Per Engzell and Julia Benrman. For more information about this or any of the seminars in the series, please contact sociology.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.