Moving to Segregation: Evidence from 8 Italian Cities

Tito Boeri, Marta De Philippis, Eleonora Patacchini and Michele Pellizzari

No 6834, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use a new dataset and a novel identification strategy to analyze the effects of residential segregation on the employment of migrants in 8 Italian cities. Our data, which 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 house 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. The negative externality associated with residential segregation arises only for the employment prospects of immigrants, whether legal or illegal. We do not find evidence of either spatial mismatch or skill bias as potential explanations of this effect. Statistical discrimination by native employers is the remaining suspect.

Keywords: residential segregation; migration; hiring networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J61 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-geo, nep-iue, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published - published in: Economic Journal, 2015, 125, F82-F114.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6834.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Moving to Segregation: Evidence from 8 Italian cities (2011)
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:dp6834

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 ().