Migration and Peer Effects

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Immigration has been at the center of debate for decades in the U.S. and around the world. This panel showcases some of the latest research on migration and peer effects. The first paper (Ballis) examines how immigrant peers affect U.S.-born students in Texas in the short- and long-run and sheds light on do native families adjust their schooling decisions in response to immigrant inflows, potentially reshaping both school composition and peer environments. The second paper (Brito) investigates how the influx of school-age Venezuelan refugees affects locals' educational outcomes in Northern Brazil and finds that immigrant students didn't seem to affect the retention, dropout, or exam performance of Brazilians. The third paper (Zaiour) examines how neighborhoods shape migrant parents' decisions to enroll their children in formal daycare in Denmark and shows that co-national networks reinforce traditional gender norms where refugees placed in neighborhoods with larger co-national networks are significantly less likely to enroll their children in formal childcare. Lastly, the fourth paper (de Lucena) studies whether sports can be a channel for improving natives’ perception of migrants and finds that individuals from European countries with an over-achiever, high-immigrant national team, experienced an increase in positive feelings towards non-E.U. migrants post 2018 FIFA World Cup and provides evidence that this improvement in migrant perception is also connected to a decrease in discrimination as reported by ethnic minorities.

Policy Area

• Population and Migration Issues

Discussants

• Julia Li Zhu, San Diego State University

• Giulia Olivero, Cornell University

Organizer

• Julia Li Zhu, San Diego State University

Individual Presentations

• Native Flight and the Academic Consequences of Immigrant Peer Exposure - Presenting Author: Briana Ballis, University of California, Merced

• Refugees and Locals' Educational Outcomes: Evidence from the Venezuelan Refugee Crisis in Northern Brazil - Presenting Author: Carlos Brito, University of California, Davis

• Co-national Networks, Peer Effects, and the Use of Childcare among Refugees in Denmark - Presenting Author: Reem Zaiour, Vanderbilt University

• Migration and U.S. Labor Market Effects of the Mexican Drug War - Presenting Author: Yuci Chen, W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research