Replication Data for: How Settlement Locations and Local Networks Influence Immigrant Political Integration

To what extent do early experiences in the host country shape the political integration of immigrants? We argue that the initial neighborhoods immigrants settle in establish patterns of behavior that influence subsequent political participation. Using Norwegian administrative register data, we leverage quasi-exogenous variation in the placement of refugees to assess the consequences of assignment to particular neighborhoods. We find that the difference in electoral turnout between refugees initially placed in 20th and 80th percentile neighborhoods is 12.6 percentage points, which represents 47 percent of the participation gap between refugees and residents. To assess the mechanism, we draw on individual-level data on all neighbors present at the time of each refugees' arrival, and evaluate the relative impact of neighborhood characteristics and available social networks. Our findings suggest that while neighborhood socioeconomic factors play a limited role, early exposure to politically engaged neighbors and peer cohorts increases immigrants' electoral participation over the long run.

东道国的早期经历对移民的政治融入能产生多大程度的影响？本研究提出，移民定居的首个社区所形成的行为模式，会对其后续的政治参与产生影响。本研究借助挪威行政登记数据，利用难民安置过程中准外生的区位差异，评估被分配至特定社区所带来的后续影响。研究发现，最初被安置在20百分位与80百分位社区的难民之间，选举投票率差距达12.6个百分点，这一差距相当于难民与本地居民参与差距的47%。为剖析其作用机制，本研究调取了每位难民抵达时所在社区所有邻居的个体层面数据，以此评估社区特征与既有社会网络的相对影响。研究结果表明，尽管社区社会经济因素的作用相对有限，但早期接触政治参与活跃的邻居与同辈群体，能够长期提升移民的选举参与率。