Arbeitspapier

Faith and Assimilation: Italian Immigrants in the US

Ethnic religious organizations are often blamed for slowing down immigrants' assimilation in host societies. This paper offers the first systematic evidence on this topic by focusing on Italian Catholic churches in the US between 1890 and 1920, when four million Italians had moved to America, and anti-Catholic sentiments were widespread. Relying on newly collected data on the presence of Italian Catholic churches across counties over time, we implement a difference-in-differences design. We find that Italian churches reduced the social assimilation of Italian immigrants, lowering intermarriage, residential integration, and naturalization rates. We provide evidence that both stronger coordination within the Italian community and negative stereotyping among natives can explain these effects. Yet, Italian churches had ambiguous effects on immigrants' economic outcomes, and increased literacy and ability to speak English among Italian children.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14567

Classification
Wirtschaft
Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
Cultural Economics: Religion
Subject
immigration
assimilation
religious organizations

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Gagliarducci, Stefano
Tabellini, Marco
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
(where)
Bonn
(when)
2021

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Gagliarducci, Stefano
  • Tabellini, Marco
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Time of origin

  • 2021

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