Patterns and determinants of immigrant-native segregation in Europe

For the last three decades cities on both sides of the Atlantic have been subject to changes induced by new waves of immigrants. And there is a growing number of voices arguing that the swelling number of immigrants along with the ageing and shrinkage of the host (white) populations inevitably lead to what could be coined as a “transition to diversity” or a “third demographic transition”.  Large cities, usual ports of entry for immigrants, have been at the forefront of transition to diversity from the onset. Regarding the residential domain, the main trends have been the increase in the ethnic diversity of neighborhoods and the, parallel decline in the number of homogenous, host (white) dominated tracts; also the levels of segregation between the hosts and immigrant groups seem to be declining. Even though the issue of immigrant-native segregation in Europe has been continuously researched for the last thirty years, most of the available international comparative studies on immigrant-native spatial divisions are plagued by the problem of data quality. Moreover, so far, diligent empirical research on the effects of metropolitan structural characteristics on the intensity of segregation have been confined to the United States. With this in mind, this lecture presents the results of my novel study on the patterns and determinants of immigrant-native segregation in more than one hundred large European cities in 2011. The cases come from Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The lecture is divided into three parts. First, I briefly introduce the concept of segregation and recent advancements in its measurement. Then, I give an overview of theories aiming at the explanation of the patterns of immigrant-native segregation; the (macro)structural factors and metropolitan structure characteristics argued to contribute the intensity of immigrant-native spatial separation are illuminated, too. With the main conclusion being that the country-specific institutional context is of pivotal importance in shaping the patterns of multi-level segregation in Europe, the last part of the lecture is devoted to the presentation and discussion of the results of my study.

Vita

Szymon Marcinczak (PhD.) is lecturer at the Institute of Urban Geography and Tourism Studies at Lodz University, Poland. He is also researcher at the Department of Geography at Tartu University, Estonia. He received his MSc in Geography in 2002 and MA in Human Geography in 2004. He completed his PhD in Human Geography in 2007. From 2011 to 2014 he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Economic Geography and Economic History at Umea University, Sweden. In 2012, Szymon Marcinczak became an honorary staff member (invited professor) of Economic Geography Unity at Liege University, Belgium. His main research fields are urban geography and economic geography. His research focuses on the increase of social inequalities and the processes of socioeconomic segregation and neighborhood change in cities after socialism. Lately, he has also developed a strong interest in migration issues and in immigrant-native segregation at home, at work and in other domains of everyday life.