“Civic Participation of Immigrants: Culture Transmission and Assimilation”, 2007
(Job market paper, submitted for publication)
This paper employs the European Social Survey and the World Values Survey to empirically investigate civic participation of immigrants from fifty-four countries of origin to the European Union. Three sets of issues are addressed in this paper. First, the paper aims at understanding what factors determine civic participation of immigrants at large. Second, it seeks to shed light on differences and similarities between participation outcomes of immigrants and natives. The main part of the paper is dedicated to testing culture transmission and culture assimilation hypothesis with respect to civic participation. Culture assimilation is analysed within the traditional synthetic cohort methodology, and also by testing whether the levels of immigrants’ civic participation depend on the levels of natives’ civic participation in the same countries. Culture transmission is looked at by relating the levels of participation of non-migrants in countries of origin to participation outcomes of those who migrate. In addition, the effect of other country of origin and country of destination characteristics on immigrants’ civic participation is investigated. The issue of immigrants’ self-selection is addressed by matching immigrants to otherwise similar natives and compatriots who did not migrate. The study finds limited evidence for the transmission of participation culture across borders, although certain home country characteristics continue influencing participation behaviour of individuals after migration: it is those from industrialized, net immigration, culturally more homogeneous countries who tend to participate more. On the other hand, the culture of current place of residence matters most in that by observing higher (lower) participation patterns among natives immigrants tend to participate more (less).
“Attitudes towards Immigrants and Relative Deprivation: the Case
of a Middle-Income Country”, 2006
(submitted for publication)
This article uses a well-known concept of relative deprivation and applies it to studying determinants of attitudes towards immigrants. Extending the theory of relative deprivation to the group-level, or collective comparisons, as opposed to previously used notion of individual deprivation, we show how, in the presence of such comparisons, natives may favour immigrants less, or more, depending on their perception of income disparities between immigrants and themselves. This extension offers an additional explanation to the findings of the literature, which suggest that in relatively poorer immigration countries attitudes towards immigrants are more negative than in richer countries; and also that in richer countries poorer natives are more hostile towards immigrants. We apply this theory to the case of a middle-income country, Ukraine, and confirm that the feeling of relative deprivation adversely affects the formation of attitudes, even when the potential endogeneity of relative deprivation is taken into account. Furthermore, we find that the perception of relative deprivation matters only for those natives who subjectively underestimate their well-being, while for those who overestimate it, relative deprivation does not affect the attitudes’ formation. Finally, when considering other forms of natives’ perceived disadvantage, such as in terms of employment, access to education or medical facilities, we find that only perceived disadvantage in terms of obtaining medical aid may have an adverse impact on attitudes.
"Quantitative Assessment of Immigrants' Civic Activities: Exploring the European Social Survey"
In “Highly Active Immigrants – a Resource for European Civic Societies”, (Ed) Dita Vogel.
Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. Forthcoming 2007.
This chapter offers some quantitative background for the qualitative studies on high-level civic activism in this volume. Exploring the European Social Survey database, it attempts to systematize evidence about levels and patters of immigrants’ involvement in most of the countries of the European Union and offers some examples of quantitative data analysis that can be undertaken with the survey data. In particular, this chapter examines immigrants’ civic participation across the three following dimensions. First, specific examples are given regarding general levels of participation to different types of civic activities of immigrants from any non-EU country in any hosting EU member state, and comparisons with civic participation outcomes of natives are provided. Second, the chapter raises the issue of cross-country comparisons, focusing on differences in participation outcomes for immigrants across countries of destination as well as across countries of origin. Finally, individual differences in participation are also addressed, such as differences between individuals of various age groups, gender, and educational attainment, as well as differences between those with various length of stay and citizenship status.
Previous Research:
“Aid Coordination and Harmonisation in the Health Sector: the Case of Palestine”, with Th. Kergall. In conference proceedings of the Second International Conference “Health Financing in Developing Countries”. 2005“Foreign Direct Investment and Growth in Transition Economies”, with J. Gaisford, and W. Kerr. In proceedings of Colloquium on Ukraine’s Nation Building. 2003. (Download in PDF)