The Geography of Divergent Immigrant Fortunes

Restaurants on London's Brick Lane, heart of the city's Bangladeshi community. (Photo: ahisgett/Wikimedia Commons)


Migration is economic development. I expect migrants to do better economically than homebodies. Why do the geographically mobile earn more than the stuck? A clever way to answer that question: Compare two geographically mobile groups. Upward mobility for Bangladeshis and Pakistanis in Britain:



Bangladeshis outperform Pakistanis. The data on "marrying out" comes off as an effect, not a cause. The suggested leg-up for the Bangladeshis is two-fold. First, Bangladeshis came later and avoided occupations in the dying textile industry. Second, Pakistanis concentrated in the part of Britain known for textile employment. Thus, Bangladeshis concentrate in London; Pakistanis do not. Geography is destiny.

I've been messing around with social science for about 25 years. I put people before place. Geography is not destiny. Geography is the symptom, not the disease.

Pakistanis as relative under-performers remind me of the Portuguese community in Toronto, Canada. Many migrants crossed an ocean and stubbornly refused to interact with other ethnic groups. The Toronto neighborhood might as well be in Portugal. The refusal to socialize outside one's immigrant group, I argue, causes the negative economic outcome.

What's so great about cavorting with the other? Migration in and of itself isn't necessarily a boon to the migrant. See the Portuguese enclave in Toronto or the Pakistanis in Bradford, United Kingdom. Migration is how many people overcome the economic barriers of geography. In the U.K., moving from Bradford to London would seem a lot less daunting than the initial move across international borders from Pakistan. I suspect Bradford Pakistanis don't move to London, where they might benefit as Bangladeshis have, because they don't socialize with people of a different ethnicity.

Pakistani immigrants and their offspring suffer from inbreeding homophily. From "Migrant Networks and the Spread of Misinformation":




"Marrying out" or interacting with people not like you improves labor market intelligence and will land you a better job. That's true for two people competing for employment in the same geography. The one who is at ease with less social capital wins. Mingle or be poor.