The Area Determinants of the Location Choices of New Immigrants in England

Abstract

The author examines the determinants of the location choices of recent immigrants in England, using aggregate Department for Work and Pensions National Insurance Number registration data matched to ward and local authority district contextual data. Separate models are estimated for four recent immigrant groups, according to world area of origin, using a tobit regression modelling strategy. The results suggest that higher neighbourhood co-ethnic density and ethnic diversity levels, and higher deprivation levels, are associated with increased immigrant settlement. Most immigrants are more likely to settle in neighbourhoods with a higher availability of rented housing and lower access to employment. Compared with the other groups, EU Accession nationals and Africans are more likely to settle in deprived areas and African settlement is also more pronounced in areas with a higher availability of social housing. EU Accession nationals, unlike immigrants from more established immigrant groups, are found to be less likely to settle in large urban districts and more likely to settle in districts with lower unemployment levels.

Between Flows and Places: Using Geodemographics to Explore EU Migration Across Neighbourhoods in Britain

“…Therefore, apart from being over-represented in the hardest, less prestigious, and generally worse paid jobs (McCollum and Findlay 2015; Home Office 2009), Polish show the largest representation of constrained city dwellers and hard-pressed living areas of all EU migrants analysed in this paper. Indeed, previous literature has highlighted that EU migrants (mostly from accession countries) live largely in disadvantaged and deprived neighbourhoods (Lymperopoulou 2013;White 2011;Robinson 2010;Phillimore et al 2008). This evidence might partly explain why headline claims suggest that EU migration is having a major impact on settled residents in affected locations.…”

“…According to Zelinksy and Lee (1998: 285): However, heterolocal tendencies might be only one part of the story as choice is being exercised within important constraints too. Studies so far suggests that EU migrants from accession countries live predominantly in disadvantaged and deprived neighbourhoods, generally characterised by poor housing, high levels of unemployment, limited service provision and poor local amenities (Lymperopoulou 2013;White 2011;Robinson 2010;Phillimore et al 2008). Nonetheless, the evidence to date should not lead us to the assumption that all EU migrants live in such neighbourhoods as this will probably result in one size fits all characterisation, and the notion that all EU migrants are poor.…”

“…Although there are some exceptions such as recent studies (mostly qualitative) which predominantly provide information on the settlement of accession migrants (Lymperopoulou 2013;White 2011;Robinson 2010;Phillimore et al 2008), work which specifies the type of places and examines the settlement patterns of both eastern and southern European at the same time are virtually inexistent. This paper attempts to fill this gap by providing a comparison of the socio-spatial experiences of the largest national group of accession nationals (Polish), and the three most numerous national groups from southern Europe (Italian, Spanish and Portuguese) currently arriving to Britain.…”

Determinants of immigrants' concentration at local level in Spain: Why size and position still matter

“…As information on labour opportunities improves over the years, immigrants are much more likely to locate in areas with growing demands for their skills and areas with increasing real wages (Jaeger, ). However, Lymperopoulou () and Bauer et al ( and ) suggest that although these internal relocation or adaption processes take place at the local scale, the areas , as opposed to regions , that are well located in relation to the main metropolises will be the ones benefiting from the relocation of foreign population. The suburbanisation of jobs and immigrant concentration has been widely analysed in the United States for several metropolitan areas (Katz, Creighton, Amsterdam, & Chowkwanyun, ; Singer, ; Wright, Ellis, & Parks, ).…”

Identifying local determinants of destination choices of international immigrants to the Madrid metropolitan area

“…; McDonald ; Timberlake et al. ; Lymperopoulou ) because of the value attached to ethnicity‐related amenities and other advantages from network externalities. However, with multiple potential destinations in a narrowly defined spatial choice set it is not obvious that we should see a local positive correlation between the number of newcomers and the size of the immigrant stock.…”