Determinants of Social Support in Racialized Immigrant Networks: The case of the Roma in France.

• In Event: 1464 - Immigrant Communities/Families

Abstract

Social support is essential for individuals’ well-being. Established literature distinguishes five main dimensions of social support: emotional, instrumental, companionship, financial help, and informational. The support individuals receive in all these dimensions is deeply affected by the social networks in which they are embedded. Plenty of scholarship has explored the role of kin and friends as support providers in nonimmigrant populations. By contrast, research on personal networks and social support in immigrant minorities has been limited, in part due to their “hard-to-reach” nature. Social support patterns and determinants might be different between immigrants and nonimmigrants. Migration may exacerbate immigrants’ social isolation, or it may encourage immigrants to strengthen their relationships with close and extended family and friends in the sending or receiving countries. This paper utilizes personal network data to examine the factors and contexts shaping the provisions of social support in a racialized immigrant minority: the Romanian Roma in France. Using Hierarchical Logistic Regression, we investigate the characteristics of immigrants (i.e., the potential support recipients), their social contacts (i.e., the potential support providers), and personal networks (i.e., social contexts) that are associated with provisions of social support. Preliminary findings show that Roma migrants are more likely to receive support from alters who are females, geographically close, older, co-ethnic, and family. We discuss the policy implications of these results and their significance to the study of social support, social incorporation, and transnational practices in immigrant minorities.

Authors

• David Cañarte, University of Florida

• Raffaele Vacca, University of Florida

• Tommaso Vitale, Sciences Po, CEE