Open AccessCultural Assimilation: Learning and Sorting
Author(s) -
Stein Monteiro
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
review of economic analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.101
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1973-3909
DOI - 10.15353/rea.v13i2.4045
Subject(s) - immigration , incentive , neighbourhood (mathematics) , demographic economics , cultural assimilation , species richness , sorting , ethnic group , geography , economics , economic geography , political science , ecology , microeconomics , biology , mathematical analysis , mathematics , archaeology , law , computer science , programming language
immigrants have greater exposure to co-ethnics, leading to fewer incentives to learn the local culture and assimilate. In this paper, the exposure channel through which source country richness affects assimilating immigration is modelled through neighbourhood location choices and incentives to learn the local culture in the host country. Two equilibrium outcomes are identified, in which, there is either only assimilating immigration in at least one neighbourhood of the host country (sorting equilibrium) when immigration is from a rich source country, or there is some non-assimilating immigration in all neighbourhoods (mixed equilibrium) when immigration is from a poor source country. The presence of this exposure channel is tested using data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants in Canada: waves 1-3. Learning, rather than sorting into co-ethnic communities, is the main factor operating in the exposure channel between source country richness and assimilating immigration.