Culture clash or culture club? The identity and attitudes of immigrants in Britain

Alan Manning and Sanchari Roy

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: There is economic evidence that diversity has consequences for economic performance (see Alesina and La Ferrara, 2005). This might have consequences for immigration policy – how many immigrants to allow into a country and from what cultural background. But, central to such a discussion is the pace of cultural assimilation among immigrants – this under-researched topic is the focus of this paper. It investigates the extent and determinants of British identity among those living in Britain and the views on rights and responsibilities in societies. We find no evidence for a culture clash in general, and one connected with Muslims in particular. The vast majority of those born in Britain, of whatever ethnicity or religion, think of themselves as British and we find evidence that third-generation immigrants are more likely to think of themselves as British than second generation. Newly arrived immigrants almost never think of themselves as British but the longer they remain in the UK, the more likely it is that they do. This process of assimilation is faster for those from poorer and less democratic countries, even though immigrants from these countries are often regarded as a particular cause for concern. Our analysis of rights and responsibilities finds much smaller differences in views between the UK-born and immigrants than within the UK-born population.

Keywords: Immigration; Identity; Assimilation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2007-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/19729/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Culture Clash or Culture Club? The Identity and Attitudes of Immigrants in Britain (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:19729

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager (lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk).