Immigration, Identity Choices, and Cultural Diversity

Yasmine Elkhateeb, Riccardo Turati and Jérôme Valette

No 18261, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: Does immigration challenge the identities, values, and cultural diversity of receiving societies? This paper addresses this question by analyzing the impact of immigration on cultural diversity in Europe between 2004 and 2018. It combines regional cultural diversity indices derived from the European Social Survey with immigration shares from the European Labor Force Survey. The results indicate that immigration increases the salience of birthplace identity along cultural lines, fostering a shift toward nativist identities among the native population. These identity shifts, in turn, trigger a process of cultural homogenization among natives. This effect is stronger in regions receiving culturally distant immigrants. It reflects a process of convergence toward the values of highly skilled liberal natives and divergence from those of low-skilled conservative immigrants.

Keywords: cultural diversity; social identity; immigration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D72 F22 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-eur, nep-mac, nep-mig and nep-ure
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https://docs.iza.org/dp18261.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Immigration, Identity Choices, and Cultural Diversity (2025)
Working Paper: Immigration, Identity Choices, and Cultural Diversity (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18261

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