Trust, Diversity and Migrant Trajectories

• In Event: Experimental Research & Migration and Citizenship & Politics, Literature and Film & Civic Engagement Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: Migration and Citizenship Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to compare the impact of neighborhood diversity on community trust, generalized trust and outgroup trust across groups, both native and immigrants with different migration trajectories. Many Western societies are becoming increasingly diverse. Diversity may also give rise to conflicts that are fueled by cultural differences and where groups that strongly identify with the majority culture regard others from a different background as posing a threat to their way of life and give rise to distrust. Even though theories that focus on intergroup conflicts often focus on the relationship between majority and minorities, conflicts could also be applicable to different groups of minorities. For instance, conflicts and competition over scarce resources such as housing may occur between those migrants that have arrived in Sweden as work-related migrants and those who have arrived in Sweden as asylum-seeking refugees. Studies from neighborhoods that are majority minority in the urban area of Gothenburg have described conflicts among groups of minorities that are employed and those minorities who are unemployed (Esaiasson 2019). Also, perceptions of similarity may be stronger across groups that share similar migration experiences. Previous studies have shown that migrants that come to high trusting countries like the Scandinavian countries tend to become more similar to the majority population and hence more trusting (Dinesen 2014). The study will use multi-level analysis with about 10,000 individuals and around 1,000 individuals with immigrant background where respondents are nested in neighborhoods, with varying degrees of diversity.

Nowadays about a fifth of the Swedish population is first-generation immigrants (Statistics Sweden 2020). This increase in the share of the population that are first-generation immigrants has been rapid. In 2010, this group made up about 11% of the total population to around 20% in 2019. Immigration to Sweden has occurred in several different both as work-related immigration after the second world war and through asylum related immigration from the 1970s and onwards. A large share of the most recent waves of immigration has been from conflict-ridden countries in the Middle East. Making Syria the most common country of origin for first-generation immigrants in Sweden (Statistics Sweden 2020).

Preliminary results show that levels of trust are first and foremost lower among migrants than among natives with increasing levels of diversity. Moreover, levels of trust is lower among work-force migrants living in diverse neighborhoods, while it slightly higher among refugee migrants with increasing diversity.

Author

• Susanne Wallman Lundasen, Linköping university