Ethnic Mixing in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment and a Structural Model

Vous êtes ici

Accueil » Ethnic Mixing in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment and a Structural Model
13 Avril 2021
Types de publication: 
Cahier de recherche
Auteur(s): 
Vincent Boucher
Semih Tumen
Michael Vlassopoulos
Jackline Wahba
Yves Zenou
Axe de recherche: 
Politiques publiques et réglementation
Mots-clés: 
Refugees
early childhood
randomized field experiment
Structural estimation
Network formation
non-cognitive skills
Classification JEL: 
J15
J18
Z13

We study the social integration of ethnic minority children in the context of an early childhood program conducted in Turkey aimed at preparing 5-year-old native and Syrian refugee children for primary school. We randomly assign children to groups with varying ethnic composition and find that exposure to children of the other ethnicity leads to an increase in the formation of interethnic friendships, especially for Turkish children. We also find that the Turkish language skills of Syrian children are better developed in classes with a larger presence of Turkish children. We then develop a model of friendship formation with two key mechanisms: preference bias and congestion in the friendship formation process. Structural estimation of the model suggests that interethnic exposure reduces the share of own-ethnicity friends (homophily) and has a non-monotonic effect on the propensity to form own-ethnicity friendships beyond what would be expected given the size of the group (inbreeding homophily). Counterfactual analysis indicates that improvement in the language skills of Syrian children can offset more than half of the effect that ethnic bias has on friendship formation patterns. Finally, we find that for Syrian children exposure to Turkish children in the pre-school program has a long-term effect on primary school absenteeism.
 

Contact: 


Vincent Boucher: Laval University.
Semih Tumen: TED University, IZA, ERF.
Michael Vlassopoulos: University of Southampton, IZA.
Jackline Wahba: University of Southampton, IZA.
Yves Zenou: Monash University, CEPR, IZA.


We thank Salma Mousa, Luigi Minale, Sandra Sequeira, Jorge Garcia-Hombrados, Cevat Aksoy, Orkun Saka, Pinar Ozel, Serdar Polat, Matt Lowe, Michele Pellizzari, and audiences at the 13th Migration and Development Conference, the EBRD & KCL Workshop on the Economics and Politics of Migration, 2nd LSE Workshop on Political Economy of Turkey, the 2021 AEA/ASSA, and the New Zealand Economics eSeminar Series for useful comments.