The Dream of a New Home: Where Immigrants Live and What It Says About Us
Audiences are a moving target.
It's time, once again, to catch up with the shifting platforms for public debate. And so, I've begun writing Twitter threads.
If you're not a Twitter person, never fear: I will post my threads here as well.
First up is a meditation on what it means to assimilate into a new land, written a few weeks ago to celebrate Thanksgiving:
Do immigrants assimilate into Western countries over time? Or do important differences remain long after they’ve arrived?
In countries that prize homeownership as a national goal, as in the “American dream,” the housing market is a pretty good place to test these questions… 2/— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
The trouble is, assimilation takes time. The story of an immigrant cohort is written down through the bloodline, working its way further into the body politic with each branching capillary…
How do we follow the pulsing journey of this multigenerational transformation? 3/— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
The TeO survey opens a window into these generations. When they interviewed people in France, the country had 5.3 MM in the 1st generation and 6.5 MM in the 2nd, a total of 1/5 of the population.
Their experiences told a story of both assimilation and stratification… 4/— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
Among ppl with the same traits – income, occupation, age, etc – 1st-gen immigrants are 20 percentage points less likely to own their own home and 20 percentage points more likely to live in social housing, known for its poor quality, concentration of poverty, and segregation… 5/
— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
But here’s the twist: Despite lower education, lower income, and lower-level occupations on average, the children of immigrants are just as likely to be homeowners as the rest of the French population.
Bottom line? Yes, they assimilate.
But. Not all of them… 6/— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
If their parents are from other EU countries, they’re just as likely to own a home as the rest of the French population.
If they’re from French overseas territories, Algeria, or Sub-Saharan Africa, the homeownership gap persists.
Why? Well, we know one reason… 7/— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
In @ArthurAcolin’s previous work with @GaryDeanPainter and @RaphaelBostic, he found that landlords discriminate against applicants with names that sound like they come from those countries... https://t.co/t7yEcAaneM 8/
— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
So, this is one more piece of evidence that housing discrimination persists and it matters. How much does it matter, you ask?
The odds of owning a home, for a child whose parents hail from the EU, are ~50%. For a 2nd-gen immigrant from Sub-Saharan Africa, it’s < 20%... 9/— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
And you can’t say it’s got anything to do with geography because the gap isn’t significant for immigrants from, say, Turkey or Southeast Asia.
The immigrant experience in France is stratified, largely based on who gets the opportunities to assimilate and who doesn’t… 10/— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018
But when the playing field is level, when people are accepted and welcomed, they can assimilate into the housing market in a generation or less. Though our bloodlines stretch across the globe, our hearts beat as one.
Happy Thanksgiving. 11/11— Anthony W. Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) November 22, 2018