A rolling stone gathers no moss? Residential mobility among ethnic minorities in Germany and its consequences for well-being (WELLMOB)
Final Report Abstract
This study set out to study residential mobility and its consequences for subjective wellbeing (SBW) among ethnic minorities in Germany. As integration and social upward mobility increase, so does the desire for residency ¡n affluent suburban neighborhoods and home ownership. At the same time, research suggests that ethno-religious community embeddedness may act as a bedrock of a high quality of life among persons of immigrant origin. We therefore studied the subjective well-being of persons of immigrant origin living in German (suburban) mainstream neighborhoods vis-á-vis the subjective well-being of those residing in ethno-religious communities. To explain potential wellbeing effects of moving to a new neighborhood, we expanded the fundamental model of subjective wellbeing and its social drivers by three types of neighborhood qualities (general neighborhood resources, ethno-religious community resources, and discrimination), owhich turned out to matter to persons of immigrant origin. We conducted an encompassing analysis of neighborhood effects based on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and matched the SOEP data with a novel set of indicators of ethno-religious community infrastructures covering places of worship, associations and groceries based on the places of residence (zip codes) of the respondents. Our study makes methodological and theoretical contributions to the existing state-of-the-art. First, we created an extensive database of ethno-reilgious infrastructures for all regions in Germany and will make these publicly available. The data stem from Google sources, the German register for cultural associations and commercial organizations and websites of religious communities. Second, we build on the newly collected data, and reveal that the approach previous studies used to approximate effects of ethnic embeddedness is flawed. The demographic share of ones own group, which is commonly used to measure embeddedness plays not such a big role role in the well-being of irnmigrants and their descendants. lnstead, aspects of ethno-religious infrastructures can partly explain well-being. Associations and clubs in particular contribute to improved well-being, while grocery stores and houses of worship are not systematically related. Thus, some aspects of ethno-religious embedding are more relevant to well-being than others. To the current debate we contribute this and the following insights. First, spatial segregation is not generally good or bad for the subjective well-being of immigrants and their descendants particularly associations are related to higher levels of well-being, whereas other infrastructures matter surprisingly less. Second, one group in particular benefits from neighborhoods with ethno-religious associations: the descendants of immigrants who identify strongly with their parents country of origin. This group is statistically relevant because it makes up around half of the so-called second generation. Contrary to what is usually assumed, the importance of ethno-religious infrastructures is not declining, but actually increasing for the second generation.
Publications
-
Gebetshäuser, Geschäfte, Vereine. Eine Berliner Geografie ethno-religiöser lnfrastrukturen. WZB Mitteilungen, no. 173: 12-16
Wiedner, Jonas, Merlin Schaeffer, Sarah Carol, and Susanne Bölier
-
Der Wert Der Nachbarschaft. Wie Vereine Das Wohlbefinden von lmmigrant*innen Steigern. WZB Mitteilungen, no. 175: 17-20
Carol, Sarah, Merlin Schaeffer, and Jonas Wiedner
-
Ethno-religious neighbourhood infrastructures and the life satisfaction of immigrants and their descendants in Germany. Urban Studies, 59(14), 2985-3004.
Wiedner, Jonas; Schaeffer, Merlin & Carol, Sarah
-
Spatial overlap: Trade-offs in Refugees’ Residential Choices. (2023, 1, 24). American Geophysical Union (AGU).
Wiedner, Jonas & Schaeffer, Merlin
