The Impact of Xenophobic Violence on the Integration of Immigrants

Integration of immigrants is a two-way process involving immigrants and the host country society. An underexplored question is how xenophobic violence in host countries affects integration. Exploiting a unique series of hate crimes in Germany using a difference-in-differences matching strategy, I find that exposure to xenophobic violence has an impact on several dimensions of immigrants‘ socio-economic integration. In particular, it reduces subjective well-being and investment in German language skills, while it increases return intentions. Therefore, this paper demonstrates that anti-immigrant violence has indirect costs by impairing the integration of those immigrants who belong to the target group of xenophobic attacks.

Prof. Dr. Max Steinhardt is Professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies and the FU Berlin