Local Ethnic Composition and Natives’ and Immigrants’ Geographic Mobility in France, 1982–1999

Abstract

This article provides empirical results on patterns of native and immigrant geographic mobility in France. Using longitudinal data, we measure mobility from one French municipality (commune) to another over time and estimate the effect of the initial municipality's ethnic composition on the probability of moving out. These data allow us to use panel techniques to correct for biases related to selection based on geographic and individual unobservables. Our findings tend to discredit the hypothesis of a -white flight‖ pattern in residential mobility dynamics in France. Some evidence does show ethnic avoidance mechanisms in natives' relocating. We also find a strong negative and highly robust effect of co-ethnics' presence on immigrants' geographic mobility. Keywords geographic mobility, white flight, ethnic clustering, ethnic preferences, contextual variables <text> Studies of ethnicity have lacked scientific and political legitimacy for decades in France, but French urban sociology is increasingly concerned with this issue.1 During the 2005 riots, black and Arab youth in the French suburbs were primarily depicted in violent images. The media and some politicians linked the riots to immigrants' failed assimilation and the rise of communitarianism in France. At the same time, scholars are increasingly using ghettoization terminology, usually regarded as specific to the U.S. context, to describe French urban dynamics. This debate has lacked evidence regarding the extent to which neighborhood ethnic characteristics are driving geographic mobility.We seek to describe natives' and immigrants' 2 geographic mobility in France, as well as how these groups react to neighborhoods' ethnic compositions. We build on U.S. literature concerning the effect of ethnic preferences on mobility for whites and minorities and discuss its relevance for France. Our empirical analyses rely on unique data that combine longitudinal individual information on geographic mobility with contextual aggregated socioeconomic and ethnic characteristics of residential areas. This panel data structure allows us to control for effects of individual and geographic unobserved characteristics on mobility, thus enhancing confidence in our estimates. Findings show very little support for -French white flight‖ in outmigration but some support for avoidance patterns in relocating. On the other hand, we find the ethnic clustering pattern to be highly robust. IN SEARCH OF WHITE FLIGHT: UNDERLYING HYPOTHESES AND LIMITATIONSClassical sociologists depict geographic mobility as the channel through which ethnic segregation can lose ground (Duncan and Lieberson 1959;Park and Burgess 1921;). Geographic 2 mobility is thus seen as a sign-or an outcome-of the assimilation process (Massey and Denton 1985;South, Crowder, and Chavez 2005). Studies on patterns and trends of segregation in the United States emphasize the limitations of this framework, especially for African Americans (Iceland and Scopilliti 2008;Massey and Denton 1993). The very slow decrease in racial...

The ethnoracial context of residential mobility in France: Neighbourhood out‐migration and relocation

“…Although most models showed a strong positive effect of the neighbourhood immigrant share on the majority's out‐migration, this trend was not confirmed in models controlling for neighbourhood fixed effects. This result mirrors that of Rathelot and Safi (), who also find an insignificant effect of the immigrant share in models controlling for geographic heterogeneity. A possible interpretation of this finding lies in the racial proxy hypothesis: The majority may be more likely to leave these neighbourhoods not specifically because of their immigrant composition, but rather due to other attributes of the spaces in which immigrants are concentrated.…”

“…The findings broadly suggest that local ethnoracial context is a significant predictor of mobility among immigrants and the majority, albeit in diverging ways. A negative effect of the local share of coethnics on moving out of the neighbourhood was consistently found for first generation immigrants, and second generation immigrants in most models, confirming place stratification's emphasis on ethnic clustering patterns (H1) and prior evidence from France at the municipality level (Rathelot & Safi, ). Moreover, variation within the immigrant population linked to occupation and family size did not weaken the ethnic clustering effect.…”

“…Using longitudinal data, Pan Ké Shon () finds that African immigrants have a lower probability of exiting disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and net of socio‐economic factors are more likely to move into them. Investigating ethnic clustering and native flight, Rathelot and Safi () document a robust effect of the share of coethnics in the municipality on the out‐mobility of immigrants. However, evidence of a “French native flight” is not confirmed in models controlling for unobserved municipality characteristics.…”

“…With a few notable exceptions (see Pan Ké Shon, ; Rathelot & Safi, ), residential mobility studies of this kind are still rare in France. The majority of existing findings on immigrants' spatial concentration rely on cross‐sectional data that cannot capture household moves, measure segregation at the city level, or concern first generation immigrants only (see Pan Ké Shon & Verdugo, ; Préteceille, ; Safi, ).…”

Evolución y pautas geográficas de la segregación residencial de los marroquíes en España

“…La razón principal de ello es que la población autóctona representa progresivamente una proporción menor de la población total (96,9% en el año 2000, 85,6% en el 2014). No obstante, otra posible explicación paralela a la anterior podría resultar de procesos de despoblamiento de aquellos barrios o zonas de las ciudades con un importante aumento de la población extranjera por parte de los nacionales, a causa de lo que se conoce como White flight (Frey y Liaw, 1998) o Ethnic avoidance (Rathelot y Safi, 2014) o simplemente por el envejecimiento de la población, provocando que los españoles se encuentren cada vez menos en sus áreas de residencia con los marroquíes y el resto de extranjeros.…”