Trajectories of Spatial Assimilation or Place Stratification? : A Typology of Residence and Workplace Histories of Newly Arrived Migrants in Sweden

• In most societies, resources and opportunities are concentrated in neighbor-hoods and workplaces occupied by the host population. The spatial assimilationand place stratification theories propose trajectories (the sequences of events)leading to minority and migrant access to or exclusion from these advantageousplaces. However, most previous research on these theories did not ask whethersuch theorized trajectories occur. We apply sequence analysis to decade-long res-idence and workplace histories of newly arrived migrants in Sweden to identify atypology of combined residence-work trajectories. The seven types of trajecto-ries in our typology are characterized by varying degrees of proximity to thehost population in residential neighborhoods and workplaces and by different pat-terns of change in such proximity over time. The pivotal role of socioeconomicgains in spatial assimilation, posited by the namesake theory, is not supported, aswe do not find that migrant employment precedes residence alongside the hostpopulation. The importance of housing-market discrimination for migrants’exclusion from host-dominated spaces, posited by place stratification theory, isonly weakly supported, as we find that migrants from less affluent countries accu-mulate disadvantage over time, likely due to discrimination in both the labor andhousing markets. Our findings also underscore the need for new theories explain-ing migrant residential outcomes which apply to contexts where migrant-denseneighborhoods are still forming.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Kulturgeografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Human Geography (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Internationell migration och etniska relationer (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- International Migration and Ethnic Relations (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

spatial assimilation

place stratification

sequence analysis

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)