Ethnic enclaves and the economic success of immigrants - evidence from a natural experiment

Author: Per-Anders Edin, And Peter Fredriksson, And Olof Åslund, And

Published in: Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 118, no. 1, pp. 329-357

Summary of Working paper 2000:9

Recent immigrants tend to locate in ethnic ”enclaves” within metropolitan areas. The economic consequence of living in such enclaves is still an unresolved issue. We use an immigrant policy initiative in Sweden, when government authorities distributed refugee immigrants across locales in a way that may be considered exogenous. This policy initiative provides a unique natural experiment, which allows us to estimate the causal effect on labor market outcomes of living in enclaves. We find substantive evidence of sorting across locations. When sorting is taken into account, living in enclaves improves labor market outcomes; for instance, the earnings gain associated with a standard deviation increase in ethnic concentration is in the order of four to five percent.