Migration, Friendship Ties, and Cultural Assimilation

• Author: Giovanni Facchini,Eleonora Patacchini,Max F. Steinhardt
• Date: 01 April 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12096
• Published date: 01 April 2015

Scand. J. of Economics 117(2), 619–649, 2015

DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12096

Migration, Friendship Ties, and Cultural

Assimilation∗

Giovanni Facchini

University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

giovanni.facchini@nottingham.ac.uk

Eleonora Patacchini†

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

eleonora.patacchini@cornell.edu

Max F. Steinhardt

Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg DE-22043, Germany

steinhardt@hsu-hh.de

Abstract

We study immigrant assimilation by analyzing whether friendship with natives is a measure

of cultural assimilation, and by investigating the formation of social ties. Using the German

Socio-Economic Panel, we find that immigrants with a German friend are more similar to

natives than those without German friends, along several important dimensions, including

concerns about the economy, an interest in politics, and a host of policy issues. Turning to

friendship acquisition, we find that becoming employed, time spent in the host country, the

birth of a child, residential mobility, and additional education acquired in the host country

are significant drivers of social network variation.

Keywords: Culture; ethnic minorities; social network formation

JEL classification:A14; J15; J61

I. Introduction

Immigrant assimilation – a process of convergence of immigrant behavioral

and attitudinal outcomes to the outcomes of the native-born – is a complex

phenomenon. It can occur along some dimensions (language, citizenship

acquisition, or employment), but not necessarily along others (religiosity).

It can also be very heterogeneous across destinations, origins, or both.

Assimilation is mostly a one-way, absorptive process, whereas integration

†EIEF, IZA, and CEPR.

∗Very useful comments were provided by seminar participants at the Annual Conference

of the Scottish Economic Society 2014 in Perth and the Institute for the Study of Labor

(IZA). We especially thank three anonymous referees for comments and suggestions that

have improved the manuscript.

CThe editors of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2014.

620 Migration, friendship ties, and cultural assimilation

also reflects the extent to which receiving societies are willing to engage

with immigrants, accept them, and provide them with equal rights and

opportunities to express their behaviors and preferences along with the

native-born. As such, integration is mostly framed by specific measures

and policies adopted by the destination country, which affect the inclusion

of immigrants into different life dimensions. A good understanding of

assimilation processes is thus crucial to the design of effective integration

policies, and the objective of this paper is to contribute to this goal in two

ways. First, we analyze to what extent friendship with natives can be seen

as a measure of cultural assimilation. Second, we study the determinants

of the formation of social network ties in the host country.

The political and academic debate surrounding assimilation and integra-

tion has a long-standing tradition in the US, while attention to immigration

and other minority-related concerns is relatively novel in Europe. In partic-

ular, much of the existing body of literature focuses on the economic im-

pact of immigration (e.g., Manacorda et al., 2012) and the issue of identity

has been investigated in relation to labor-market outcomes (Mason, 2004;

Constant and Zimmermann, 2008; Battu and Zenou, 2010). The key ques-

tion in these studies is whether immigrants who identify strongly with the

host country perform better in the labor market than immigrants who do

not. Still, several important issues have not yet received enough attention

in the economics literature. In particular, do immigrants to Europe identify

themselves with the culture, values, and beliefs of the country that they

have chosen as their new home, or with the beliefs and values of their ori-

gin country? Furthermore, what are the factors shaping cultural assimilation

patterns, and what is the role of inter-ethnic contact? Modood et al. (1997)

and Manning and Roy (2010) investigate some of these aspects. Both stud-

ies (like many others focusing on the US) are based on subjective measures

of cultural assimilation. Vigdor (2013) takes a broader perspective, instead,

using objective indicators to measure the extent of economic, cultural, and

civic assimilation in the US. In this paper, we follow this approach and

measure cultural assimilation using information on the friendship patterns

between natives and immigrants. Moreover, we extend the existing body of

literature by analyzing the determinants of the formation of social networks

between immigrants and natives.

Our investigation is made possible by the use of unique information on

friendship formation contained in the recent waves of the German Socio-

Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1996–2011. The survey oversamples

the resident immigrant population and contains extensive information on

various dimensions of ethnic identity and preferences. We exploit three

specific features of these data: (i) the detailed information on cultural issues

– including crime, environmental protection, and the political domain – that

are salient to the native population; (ii) the friendship roster, which allows

CThe editors of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2014.