{"id":2586,"date":"2021-02-26T13:53:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T13:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/?p=2586"},"modified":"2021-03-02T14:05:42","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T14:05:42","slug":"childhood-exposure-to-diversity-is-best-for-community-cohesion-in-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/2021\/02\/26\/childhood-exposure-to-diversity-is-best-for-community-cohesion-in-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Childhood exposure to diversity is best for community cohesion in immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

New research from the\u00a0School of Economics<\/a>\u00a0reveals social cohesion with immigration is best ensured through childhood exposure to diversity in local neighbourhoods, leading to acceptance of other groups.<\/p>\n

The research, which is published in\u00a0Oxford Economic Papers<\/em>, builds on the Nobel Laureate economist Thomas Schelling\u2019s Model of Segregation, which showed that a slight preference by individuals and families towards their own groups can eventually result in complete segregation of communities.<\/p>\n

Shedding new light on this issue, Dr Maria Garcia-Alonso<\/a> and Dr Zaki Wahhaj<\/a> have introduced the theory that adaptability to a diverse social environment depends on greater exposure to diversity in childhood years. Following this increased acceptance of other social groups in a community, social diversity and cohesion is then sustainable.<\/p>\n

“Our research sheds light on what brings individuals in diverse societies together and what pushes them apart.” Garcia-Alonso explained “This understanding is needed to enable diverse societies to thrive.”<\/strong><\/div>\n
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A model of immigration based on this theory shows that fast-paced immigration into a community reduces social cohesion and increases social segregation, which explains the recent evolution of social diversity within UK communities and social attitudes towards other groups. The study also shows a medium pace of immigration is more effective in establishing acceptance of diversity within communities, leading to greater community cohesion over time.<\/p>\n

Dr Zaki Wahhaj, Reader in Economics at the University of Kent\u00a0and joint author of the paper, said: \u2018For a long time there has been a blind spot in debates around immigration and the social integration of minority groups: namely, that sustaining social cohesion requires not only adaption by immigrants but also a shift in how majority groups see themselves. We discovered that bringing insights from psychology \u2013 that childhood experiences are key to forming identity \u2013 easily overturns the predictions of standard economic models for studying social segregation.\u2019<\/p>\n

The paper \u2018Social diversity and bridging identity<\/a>\u2019 (Dr Zaki Wahhaj and\u00a0Dr Maria Garcia-Alonso, School of Economics, University of Kent) is available at\u00a0Oxford Economic Papers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DOI: 10.1093\/oep\/gpaa053<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research from the\u00a0School of Economics\u00a0reveals social cohesion with immigration is best ensured through childhood exposure to diversity in local neighbourhoods, leading to acceptance of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66395,"featured_media":2588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[70,1],"tags":[241593,15092,978,18227,651,241592,1082,21881,37405],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2586"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2599,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions\/2599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}