Does industrialization affect segregation? Evidence from nineteenth-century Cairo

Abstract

We investigate the impact of state industrialization on residential segregation between Muslims and non-Muslims in nineteenthcentury Cairo using individual-level census samples from 1848 and 1868. We measure local segregation by a simple inter-group isolation index, where Muslims' (non-Muslims') isolation is measured by the share of Muslim (non-Muslim) households in the local environment of each location. We find that relative to locations that did not witness changes in the instance of industrialization, the opening of Cairo railway station in 1856 differentially increased Muslims' isolation from non-Muslims (conversely, decreased non-Muslims' isolation) in its proximity and that the closures of textiles firms in 1848-1868 differentially decreased it. The results are arguably driven by an "indirect" labor market mechanism, whereby state industrialized firms crowded in private-sector unskilled jobs that attracted greater net inflows of rural immigrants and unskilled workers who were predominantly Muslims.

Urban Spatial Structure in Barcelona (1902–2011): Immigration, Spatial Segregation and New Centrality Governance

“…2 A number of historical studies have highlighted the ways socioeconomic events affect both the spatial structure and the social and demographic makeup of an urban population. Lévêque and Saleh (2018), for example, show that state industrialization in Cairo around the 1850s attracted rural migration inflows, but observe that this event deepened spatial segregation between Muslims and non-Muslims. In the case of Berlin, Hornung (2019) shows that the heterogeneous composition of migrant inflows (above all skilled immigrants) to Berlin's newly developed city quarters had beneficial results in economic terms by nurturing the creation of job-complementarities with natives.…”

The impact of ethnic segregation on schooling outcomes in Mandate Palestine

“…2 Examples are the Chinese in Malaysia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia; Indians in East Africa; Lebanese in Sierra Leone, Igbos in Nigeria (Chua, 2003). 3 Important exceptions are: Lévêque and Saleh (2018) on the impact of state-led industrialisation on Christian-Muslim segregation in 19th century Egypt; Abel (2019) on the legacy of the apartheid on trust and Bazzi et al (2019) on inter-group contact and segregation in Indonesia.…”