Oppositional Identities and the Labor Market

Harminder Battu (), McDonald Mwale () and Yves Zenou
Additional contact information
Harminder Battu: University of Aberdeen
McDonald Mwale: University of Aberdeen

No 1852, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We develop a model in which non-white individuals are defined with respect to their social environment (family, friends, neighbors) and their attachments to their culture of origin (religion, language), and in which jobs are mainly found through social networks. We find that, depending on how strong peer pressures are, nonwhites choose to adopt "oppositional" identities since some individuals may identify with the dominant culture and others may reject that culture, even if it implies adverse labor market outcomes.

Keywords: multiple equilibria; ethnic minorities; identity; social networks; white’s norm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2005-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Journal of Population Economics, 2007, 20 (3), 643 - 667

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1852.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Oppositional identities and the labor market (2007)
Working Paper: Oppositional Identities and the Labour Market (2005)
Working Paper: Oppositional Identities and the Labor Market (2005)
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:iza:izadps:dp1852

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().