The Impact of the London Bombings on the Well‐Being of Adolescent Muslims*

• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Date: 01 October 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12379

Scand. J. of Economics 122(4), 1606–1639, 2020

DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12379

The Impact of the London Bombings on the

Well-Being of Adolescent Muslims*

Arne Risa Hole

University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 4DT, UK

a.r.hole@sheffield.ac.uk

Anita Ratcliffe

University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 4DT, UK

a.ratcliffe@sheffield.ac.uk

Abstract

Weexploit the timing of the London bombings of July 2005, coinciding with a large-scale national

survey of adolescents, to identify the impact of extremist Islamic terror attacks on the well-being

of adolescent Muslims. Our analysis revealsinteresting gender differences. We find evidenceof a

decline in the happiness of Muslim teenage girls after the bombings, which is also accompanied

by a rise in expectations of facing discrimination in the labour market.These findings are rob ust

to several falsification tests. However, we fail to uncover compelling evidence of any impact of

the bombings on Muslim teenage boys.

Keywords: Depression; expectationsof discrimination; happiness; ter rorism

JEL classification:I10; I31; J15

I. Introduction

Since 9/11, the impact of extremist Islamic terrorism on the labour market

outcomes of Muslims has attracted considerable research attention (see,

inter alia, Åslund and Rooth, 2005; D´avila and Mora, 2005; Kaushal

et al., 2007). This body of work is predicated on the basis that terror

attacks increase societal prejudice against Muslims, both nationally and

internationally, thus damaging labour market prospects according to a

taste-based model of discrimination (Becker, 1957).1Indeed, several

*We thank Sarah Brown,Ana Nuevo-Chiquero, Ilyana Kuziemko, and Bert Van Landeghem, as

well as seminar participants at the universities of Jaume I, Lancaster, Manchester, Newcastle,

Sheffield, and Reading, the European Society for PopulationEconomics annual conference 2015,

and the Royal Economic Society annual conference 2017 for helpful comments and suggestions.

Wealso thank two anonymous referees for helping us to substantially improve this paper.We take

full responsibility for any errors.

1D´avila and Mora (2005) suggest that statistical discrimination could also affect workers from

countries with suspected terrorist links, as firms factor in the risk of facing additional costs from

increased government workplace inspections.

C

2019The Authors. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of F¨oreningen

f¨or utgivande av the SJE/The editors of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution

and reproduction in any medium, providedthe original work is properly cited.

A. R. Hole and A. Ratcliffe 1607

studies present evidence supporting a link between terror attacks and

widespread changes in attitudes towards Muslims. For example, after

terror attacks, house prices tend to fall and segregation tends to increase

in neighbourhoods with large ethnic populations from Muslim countries

relative to other neighbourhoods, which is consistent with an increase in

prejudice (Gautier et al., 2009; Ratcliffe and von Hinke Kessler Scholder,

2015). Hate crimes targeted at Muslims also typically spike in the

immediate aftermath of terror attacks (Hanes and Machin, 2014; Gould

and Klor, 2016) alongside a heightened sense of greater religious prejudice

towards Muslims among the general public (Kitchen et al., 2006). Shifting

the lens on to Muslims paints a similar picture, with Muslims typically

feeling more pessimistic about the receptiveness of natives to foreigners

(Elsayed and de Grip, 2018) and immigrants from Muslim countries

acknowledging more religious intolerance relative to immigrants from other

countries after terror attacks (Goel, 2010). Qualitative evidence from in-

depth interviews also reveals that Muslims are keenly aware of increased

Islamophobia following terror attacks (Change Institute, 2009a), possibly

as a consequence of negative portrayals and misrepresentations of Muslims

in some elements of the media (Saeed, 2007; Bleich et al., 2015). Yet

despite the apparent changes in attitudes towards Muslims there has been

mixed evidence from the labour market as to the economic consequences

for Muslims of extremist Islamic terror attacks, with some studies finding

an impact on wages (D´avila and Mora, 2005; Kaushal et al., 2007), some

finding an effect for specific groups (Cornelissen and Jirjahn, 2012; Rabby

and Rodgers, 2012), and others finding little influence at all (Åslund

and Rooth, 2005; Braakmann, 2009, 2010; Shannon, 2012). However,

some features of the labour market might operate to mitigate the impact

of terror attacks on the economic outcomes of Muslims. For example,

laws exist to protect minorities against discrimination, and employment

opportunities available through ethnic networks might provide a buffer

against discriminatory treatment elsewhere in the economy (Elsayed and

de Grip, 2018).

In light of evidence to suggest that Muslims face more hostile social

environments following extremist Islamic terror attacks, researchers have

begun to probe whether these attacks harm outcomes shaped in part

by the social context. To date, this line of enquiry has focused on

assimilation (Gould and Klor, 2016) and health (Johnston and Lordan,

2012), including the health consequences for newborns of maternal

exposure to increased hostility (Lauderdale, 2006). The findings point

towards a deterioration in these outcomes for Muslims and individuals from

Muslim countries following terror attacks, although Johnston and Lordan

(2012) find that negative effects emerge only for physical health and not

mental health.

C

2019The Authors. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of F¨oreningen

f¨or utgivande av the SJE/The editors of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics.

1608 Impact of London bombings on adolescent Muslims’ well-being

The impact of extremist Islamic terror attacks on younger populations

has received very little attention despite growing evidence that formative

years matter for adult outcomes (Cunha et al., 2006). If terror attacks

ignite societal prejudices and propagate negative stereotypes about Muslims,

they could have an adverse effect on the current and future outcomes

of adolescent Muslims. Denigration of any form is distressing and

demoralizing, and has the potential to have immediate impacts on

psychological functioning. However, if negative evaluations of Muslims

are internalized and/or used to inform decision-making, the consequences

are potentially far-reaching. For example, adolescents might be discouraged

from investing in human capital where discrimination pervades the labour

market; see Loury (1998) for a discussion of self-fulfilling prophecies,

psychological externalities, and other mechanisms curbing educational

attainment among minorities. Impaired psychological functioning could

also indirectly shape human capital investments by hindering both the

ability and incentives to invest in education (Fletcher, 2008), with research

exploiting exogenous variation in depressive symptoms suggesting poorer

academic performance among teenage girls in particular (Ding et al.,

2009; Busch et al., 2014). In addition, psychological health in formative

years is also linked to other markers of stability in adulthood, such

as relationship prospects and life satisfaction (Smith and Smith, 2010;

Goodman et al., 2011; Layard et al., 2014). Finally, ethnic identity is

formed during adolescence (Phinney, 1990), with unfair treatment linked

to identity adoption (Georgiadis and Manning, 2013), presenting further

scope for adverse labour market outcomes (Battu and Zenou, 2010; Nekby

and R¨odin, 2010; Bisin et al., 2011).

This paper fills a gap in the existing literature by exploiting the timing

of the London bombings of July 2005, occurring midway through a large-

scale nationally representative survey of adolescents, to examine the impact

of extremist Islamic terror attacks on the well-being of adolescent Muslims.

We focus on key indicators of well-being that provide a guide to the

contemporaneous circumstances of adolescents as well as mapping on to

economic and social circumstances in adulthood. For example, happiness

and depression provide simple and transparent metrics of well-being that

align with public policy concerns in the United Kingdom – the Office

for National Statistics monitors emotional well-being in order to measure

societal progress. We also examine expectations of facing discrimination,

an issue which lends itself to a theoretically established link between

discrimination in the labour market and human capital accumulation

(see Lundberg and Startz, 1983; Coate and Loury, 1993b; Lang and

Manove, 2011). Discriminatory expectations can be seen as one step in

a process whereby human capital investments respond to discrimination

in the labour market, with surprisingly little known about the formation

C

2019The Authors. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of F¨oreningen

f¨or utgivande av the SJE/The editors of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics.