Ethnicity and neighborhood attainment in England and Wales

Abstract

Ethnic minorities’ spatial concentration and their predominance in deprived areas are two well-known patterns that characterize Britain’s social landscape. However, little is known about ethnic minorities’ opportunities for spatial integration, especially after individual, social origin and childhood neighborhood characteristics have been taken into consideration. Using a large-scale longitudinal dataset of England and Wales covering a forty-year period (1971-2011), in combination with aggregated Census data, the author examines ethnic inequalities in access to neighborhoods with varying levels of ethnic concentration and deprivation. The article reveals that ethnic minorities are less likely than white British individuals to reside in ‘whiter’ and less deprived neighborhoods. These effects, however, reduce, for most groups, among those with higher education and a higher social class, in line with one version of the place stratification/ethnic enclave model. Growing up in areas with high ethnic concentration and high deprivation has a particularly strong ‘retention effect’ among Asians: their probabilities of being found in ‘whiter’ and less deprived areas in adulthood are the lowest. Among Africans, growing up in a less deprived area brings no benefits for future neighborhood outcomes. Ethnic groups’ unequal access to neighborhoods suggests that group-specific preferences and constrains play a role in neighborhood attainment.