Exit, Voice or Accommodation? Diversity and the White Working Class in England and Wales Eric Kaufmann and Gareth Harris, Birkbeck College

Exit, Voice, Accommodation Exit = ‘White Flight’ or Avoidance Voice = White opposition to immigration and/or far right voting Accommodation = White acceptance of diversity, immigration, ethnic change ESRC project: How related?

Exit? 1)Does diversity prompt White UK-born residents in England & Wales to prefer to leave and move from their wards of residence? 2)Are their destination choices appreciably different from those of minority movers?

Existing evidence base USA: white preference effects whilst controlling for socio/economic individual & neighborhood characteristics (Crowder & South, 2000) Europe: White avoidance rather than flight (Brama, 2006) UK: No white flight but counter-urbanisation- both white + mne residents leaving areas of neighbourhood ethnic concentration but lower class whites significantly more likely to leave diverse areas than lower class mne residents especially in London (Catney & Simpson, 2010)

Data Uses 18 waves of BHPS and waves 1 & 2 of Understanding Society to create a cross-sectional data set with person years as unit of analysis (n=192171) Attached to geo-referenced data at ward-level (linearly interpolated using 1991/2001/2011 census) to capture MNE population, deprivation (Carstairs) and population density. Ward-level diversity measured in Simpson’s quintiles in which each quintile contains a fifth of the mne population (concentration)

Preference to leave by ethnicity and quintile of diversity

Preference to leave Older residents, home owners and those in lower seg less likely to prefer to move Respondents who are more socially- but not politically- conservative more likely to want to move but not to actually do so No significant effect for individual ethnicity but white respondents more likely to prefer to leave if living in more diverse quintiles BUT minority respondents equally as likely to prefer to move from wards in quintile 5.

To stay or go? Respondents who are white, younger, better- educated, single, childless renters more likely to move. Social conservatives (but not politically conservative) more likely to stay All respondents more likely to move from more deprived and more urban wards The odds of moving higher for whites living in wards with higher minority concentration.

Predicted probabilities of move by diversity quintile and ethnicity

Diversity seeker/avoider? Single renters were more likely to move to more diverse wards No attitudinal traits significant Ethnicity a significant predictor of move away from diversity, especially for whites leaving more diverse wards White working class residents more likely to move to less diverse wards

Predicted probabilities of move towards/away from diversity

Conclusions Whites prefer to leave and do move from more diverse areas after controlling for deprivation and population density Minority respondents equally as likely to prefer to move from the most diverse wards but less likely to actually make the move Once the decision has been made to move whites tend to move away from diversity after controlling for population density and deprivation The question remains how much of this is driven by the mobility preferences of mne respondents– future work on ONS LS