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Changing In-Group Boundaries: The Effect of Immigration on Race Relations in the United States
Vasiliki Fouka & Marco Tabellini
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do social group boundaries evolve? Does the appearance of a new out-group change the in-group's perceptions of other out-groups? We introduce a conceptual framework of context-dependent categorization in which exposure to one minority leads to recategorization of other minorities as in- or out-groups depending on perceived distances across groups. We test this framework by studying how Mexican immigration to the United States affected white Americans' attitudes and behaviors toward Black Americans. We combine survey and crime data with a difference-in-differences design and an instrumental variables strategy. Consistent with the theory, Mexican immigration improves whites' racial attitudes, increases support for pro-Black government policies, and lowers anti-Black hate crimes while simultaneously increasing prejudice against Hispanics. Results generalize beyond Hispanics and Blacks, and a survey experiment provides direct evidence for recategorization. Our findings imply that changes in the size of one group can affect the entire web of intergroup relations in diverse societies.
Moralizing Immigration: Political Framing, Moral Conviction, and Polarization in the United States and Denmark
Kristina Simonsen & Bart Bonikowski
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Morally charged rhetoric is commonplace in political discourse on immigration but scholars have not examined how it affects divisions over the issue among the public. To address this gap, we employ preregistered survey experiments in two countries where anti-immigration rhetoric has been prominent: the United States and Denmark. We demonstrate that exposure to moralized messages leads respondents to place greater moral weight on their existing immigration opinions and become more averse to political leaders and, in the United States, social interaction partners who espouse opposite beliefs. This suggests that political moralization contributes to moral conflict and affective polarization. We find no evidence, however, that moral framing produces attitudinal polarization - that is, more extreme immigration opinions. Our study helps make sense of the heightened intensity of anti-immigrant politics even when attitudes are stable. It also suggests a promising avenue for comparative research on affective polarization by shifting the focus from partisanship to the moralization of existing issue disagreements.
The psychology of separation: Border walls, soft power, and international neighborliness
Diana Mutz & Beth Simmons
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 25 January 2022
Abstract:
This study assesses the impact of international border walls on evaluations of countries and on beliefs about bilateral relationships between states. Using a short video, we experimentally manipulate whether a border wall image appears in a broader description of the history and culture of a little-known country. In a third condition, we also indicate which bordering country built the wall. Demographically representative samples from the United States, Ireland, and Turkey responded similarly to these experimental treatments. Compared to a control group, border walls lowered evaluations of the bordering countries. They also signified hostile international relationships to third-party observers. Furthermore, the government of the country responsible for building the wall was evaluated especially negatively. Reactions were consistent regardless of people's predispositions toward walls in their domestic political context. Our findings have important implications for a country's attractiveness, or "soft power," an important component of nonmilitary influence in international relations.
Leapfrogging the Melting Pot? European Immigrants' Intergenerational Mobility across the Twentieth Century
Kendal Lowrey et al.
Sociological Science, December 2021
Abstract:
During the early twentieth century, industrial-era European immigrants entered the United States with lower levels of education than the U.S. average. However, empirical research has yielded unclear and inconsistent evidence about the extent and pace of their integration, leaving openings for arguments that contest the narrative that these groups experienced rapid integration and instead assert that educational deficits among lower-status groups persisted across multiple generations. Here, we advance another argument, that European immigrants may have "leapfrogged" or exceeded U.S.-born non-Hispanic white attainment by the third generation. To assess these ideas, we reconstituted three-generation families by linking individuals across the 1940 census; years 1973, 1979, and 1981 to 1990 of the Current Population Survey; the 2000 census; and years 2001 to 2017 of the American Community Survey. Results show that most European immigrant groups not only caught up with U.S.-born whites by the second generation but surpassed them, and this advantage further increased in the third generation. This research provides a new understanding of the time to integration for twentieth-century European immigrant groups by showing that they integrated at a faster pace than previously thought, indicative of a process of accelerated upward mobility.
Immigration Enforcement and Infant Health
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Brandyn Churchill & Yang Song
American Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The past two decades were characterized by an unprecedented increase in interior immigration enforcement and heightened stress due to fears of family separation and loss of income among undocumented immigrants. Using vital statistics on infant births from the National Center of Health Statistics for the 2003 through 2016 period and a difference-indifferences design, we compare the health outcomes of infants with likely undocumented mothers before and after the intensification of immigration enforcement within U.S. counties. We find that intensified enforcement, especially during the third trimester, increases the likelihood of low birth weight (<2500 grams). We also present suggestive evidence that the effect could be driven by heightened stress and fears associated to police-based enforcement during pregnancy. The findings underscore the importance of current immigration policies in shaping the birth outcomes of many American children.
Caught between Cultures: Unintended Consequences of Improving Opportunity for Immigrant Girls
Gordon Dahl et al.
Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
What happens when immigrant girls are given increased opportunities to integrate into the workplace and society, but their parents value more traditional cultural outcomes? We answer this question in the context of a reform which granted automatic birthright citizenship to eligible immigrant children born in Germany after January 1, 2000. Using survey data we collected from students in 57 schools and comparing those born in the months before versus after the reform, we find the introduction of birthright citizenship lowers measures of life satisfaction and self-esteem for immigrant girls by .32 and .25 standard deviations, respectively. This is especially true for Muslims, where parents are likely to prefer more traditional cultural outcomes than their daughters. Moreover, we find that Muslim girls granted birthright citizenship are less integrated into German society: they are both more socially isolated and less likely to self-identify as German. Exploring mechanisms for these unintended drops in well-being and assimilation, we find that immigrant Muslim parents invest less in their daughters' schooling and that these daughters receive worse grades in school if they are born after the reform. Parents are also less likely to speak German with these daughters. Consistent with a rise in intrafamily conflict, birthright citizenship results in disillusionment where immigrant Muslim girls believe their chances of achieving their educational goals are lower and the perceived odds of having to forgo a career for a family rise. In contrast, immigrant boys experience, if anything, an improvement in well-being, integration, and schooling outcomes. Taken together, the findings point towards immigrant girls being pushed by parents to conform to a role within traditional culture, whereas boys are allowed to take advantage of the opportunities that come with citizenship. To explain these findings, we construct a simple game-theoretic model which builds on Akerlof and Kranton (2000), where identity-concerned parents constrain their daughter's choices, and hence lower their daughter's well-being, when faced with the threat of integration. Alternative models can explain some of the findings in isolation.
The Effect of Legal Status on Prison Misconduct
Sylwia Piatkowska et al.
Crime & Delinquency, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present study examines the relationship between legal status and prisoner misconduct by comparing official disciplinary infraction reports between documented, undocumented, and native-born inmates. We also examine the extent to which such effects vary across different types (i.e., criminal and non-criminal) of reported infractions. Using data from the Florida Department of Corrections, the results reveal that undocumented foreigners have a higher likelihood and a higher frequency of any misconduct and criminal misconduct as well as a higher frequency of non-criminal misconduct than the other two groups, while no such differences are found between documented and native-born prisoners. Our research underscores the salient role of legal status in predicting the in-prison behaviors of foreign-born inmates.
Border Orientation in a Globalizing World
Beth Simmons & Michael Kenwick
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Border politics are a salient component of high international politics. States are increasingly building infrastructure to ''secure'' their borders. We introduce the concept of border orientation to describe the extent to which the state is committed to the spatial display of capacities to control the terms of penetration of its national borders. Border orientation provides a lens through which to analyze resistance to globalization, growing populism, and the consequences of intensified border politics. We measure border orientation using novel, geospatial data on the built environment along the world's borders and theorize that real and perceived pressures of globalization have resulted in more controlling forms of border governance. Empirical evidence supports this claim: States build more along their borders when faced with economic, cultural, and security-based anxieties. Border orientation enhances the study of border politics, complementing the politics of territorial division with a richer politics of liminal securitization and its consequences.