Ethnic Enclaves and Cultural Assimilation, Job Market Paper

This paper studies whether growing up in an ethnic enclave slows down immigrants' cultural assimilation. To identify neighbourhood influence, I exploit the random allocation of asylum seekers to government housing in the Netherlands between 1996 and 2012. Using individual level administrative data on drug usage, I define cultural assimilation for Non-Western immigrant females as using contraceptives during their teenage years. My results show that cultural assimilation is slow and cannot be accelerated by limiting the formation of ethnic enclaves. Using machine learning techniques, I do not find evidence that this baseline result hides heterogeneous effects on a relevant sub-population. 

This paper was presented at EALE (Uppsala), SOLE (Arlington), RES (Warwick), SMYE (Brussels), Winter Meetings of the E.S. (Rotterdam), EUI Applied Micro Seminar and Tilburg Economics Workshop.  This paper is scheduled for presentation at the IZA Annual Migration Meeting (Bonn).

The Intergenerational (Im)mobility of Immigrants, Under Review

This paper studies the influence of pre-migration social background on the long-term economic assimilation of immigrants. I use unique French survey data to trace family histories over three generations, in both the origin and destination countries, before and after migration. While many immigrants experience an occupational downgrading at migration, their children strongly benefit from the high socio-economic status their family had in the origin country. As a result, characteristics of immigrant grandparents are more predictive of grandchildren's achievements than are characteristics of native grandparents. These findings are consistent with a model where immigrants cannot fully transfer their human capital between labour markets but transmit it across generations.
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This paper was presented at EALE (Lyon), RES (Bristol), IZA Summer School, Macroeconomics Lunch Seminar (Louvain), OECD-CEPII Annual Conference (Paris), ESPE (Antwerpen), AIEL (Trento) and EUI Applied Micro Seminar. 

Who influences young immigrants? with Eva Johansen (Aarhus University)

Is teenagers decision to use contraceptives influenced by peers? To identify peer effects, we rely on cross-cohort variation in students usage in Danish high-schools. To address the reflection problem, we focus on the influence of older cohorts on younger ones. Contraception not being prevalent among young women with a non-Western background, its usage is a good measure of cultural adaptation. Looking at the effect of different peers group is indicative of which is influential. Immigrant teenagers adapt their behaviours to what other immigrants (but not what other natives) do. Their probability of using contraceptives and of having an abortion becomes lower, but not their likelihood of being treated for chlamydia.

This paper was presented at the EUI Applied Micro Seminar and is scheduled for presentation at RES (Belfast) and EALE/SOLE (Berlin). 

Stranger Danger: Parental Attitudes, Child Development and the Fear of Kidnaping with Agnès Charpin (EUI)

This paper was presented at the EUI Applied Micro Seminar and is scheduled for presentation at the SMYE (Bologna) ​

Work in Progress:

The presence of ethnic minorities and voting in the Netherlands with Sigrid Suetens (Tilburg) 

Work flexibility, parent’s careers and children outcomes with Michèle Bélot (EUI) and Arnaud Chevalier (RHUL)
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