Civic Participation of Immigrants: Culture Transmission and Assimilation

Mariya Aleksynska

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: 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 nonmigrants 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).

Keywords: immigration; civic participation; social assimilation; culture transmission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 Z10 O15 J61 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-soc
Date: 2007-04
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http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4594/ orginal version
http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/7674/ revised version

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:4594

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