Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17174
Authors: Michael Bailey; Drew Johnston; Martin Koenen; Theresa Kuchler; Dominic Russel; Johannes Stroebel
Abstract: We use de-identified data from Facebook to study the social integration of Syrian migrants in Germany, a country that received a large influx of refugees during the Syrian Civil War. We construct measures of migrants' social integration based on Syrians' friendship links to Germans, their use of the German language, and their participation in local social groups. We find large variation in Syrians' social integration across German counties, and use a movers' research design to document that these differences are largely due to causal effects of place. Regional differences in the social integration of Syrians are shaped both by the rate at which German natives befriend other locals in general (general friendliness) and the relative rate at which they befriend local Syrian migrants versus German natives (relative friending). We follow the friending behavior of Germans that move across locations to show that both general friendliness and relative friending are more strongly affected by place-based effects such as local institutions than by persistent individual characteristics of natives (e.g., attitudes toward neighbors or migrants). Relative friending is higher in areas with lower unemployment and more completed government-sponsored integration courses. Using variation in teacher availability as an instrument, we find that integration courses had a substantial causal effect on the social integration of Syrian migrants. We also use fluctuations in the presence of Syrian migrants across high school cohorts to show that natives with quasi-random exposure to Syrians in school are more likely to befriend other Syrian migrants in other settings, suggesting that contact between groups can shape subsequent attitudes towards migrants.
Keywords: integration; immigration; social networks; place effects
JEL Codes: F22; J15; K37; D85
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| general friendliness (I31) | relative friending (Z13) |
| local institutions (D02) | general friendliness (I31) |
| local institutions (D02) | relative friending (Z13) |
| exposure to Syrian migrants (F22) | likelihood of befriending other Syrian migrants (F22) |
| place-based factors (R32) | social integration outcomes (Z13) |
| teacher availability (I21) | social integration of Syrian migrants (F55) |
| integration courses (F15) | relative friending (Z13) |
| integration courses (F15) | social integration of Syrian migrants (F55) |