Moving to Segregation: Evidence from 8 Italian cities

Tito Boeri, Marta De Philippis, Eleonora Patacchini and Michele Pelizzari
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Michele Pelizzari: IGIER-Bocconi University, fRDB and IZA

No 1109, EIEF Working Papers Series from Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF)

Abstract: We use a new dataset and a novel identification strategy to analyze the effects on labor market outcomes of residential segregation of migrants in 8 Italian cities. Our data are representative of the population of both legal and illegal migrants, allow us to measure segregation at the very local level (the block) and include measures of housing prices, commuting costs and migrants’ linguistic ability. We find evidence that migrants who reside in areas with a high concentration of non-Italians are less likely to be employed compared to similar migrants who reside in less segregated areas. In our preferred specification, a 10 percentage points increase in residential segregation reduces the probability of being employed by 7 percentage points or about 8% over the average. Additionally, we also show that this effect emerges only above a critical threshold of 15-20% of migrants over the total local population, below which there is no statistically detectable effect. Contrary to common wisdom, in our data migrants seem to be positively selected into segregated areas. A simple matching model with heterogeneous workers and endogenous sorting into heterogeneous locations rationalizes our findings and is supported by additional empirical results.

Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2010, Revised 2011-04
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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http://www.eief.it/files/2012/09/wp-09-moving-to-s ... 8-italian-cities.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Moving to Segregation: Evidence from 8 Italian Cities (2012)
Working Paper: Immigration, Housing Discrimination and Employment (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eie:wpaper:1109

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