Measuring Ethnic Identity and Its Impact on Economic Behavior

Arbeitspapier

The paper advocates for a new measure of the ethnic identity of migrants, models its determinants and explores its explanatory power for various types of their economic performance. The ethnosizer, a measure of the intensity of a person's ethnic identity, is constructed from information on the following elements: language, culture, societal interaction, history of migration, and ethnic self-identification. A two-dimensional concept of the ethnosizer classifies migrants into four states: integration, assimilation, separation and marginalization. The ethnosizer largely depends on pre-migration characteristics. Empirical evidence studying economic behavior like work participation, earnings and housing decisions demonstrates the significant relevance of ethnic identity for economic outcomes.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research ; No. 47

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology: General
• Subject: Ethnicity ; ethnic identity ; acculturation ; migrant assimilation ; migrant integration ; work ; cultural economics

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Constant, Amelie ; Zimmermann, Klaus F.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2007

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/150596
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET