Immigration, segregation, and attitudes toward immigrants: a longitudinal multiscalar analysis across egohoods

Evidence on how proximity to ethnic outgroups shapes attitudes toward immigration remains inconclusive. We suggest this may be driven, in part, by the fact that studies rarely account for the role of residential segregation. We argue that how the minority-share in an environment affects majority-group attitudes will depend on how segregated groups are from one another. To explore this, we undertake fixed-effects modelling of nationally representative German panel data and contextual data (2005–2013), and generate bespoke, home-centred egohoods for respondents across 12 spatial scales (500–10,000 metres radius). Findings show that how egohood minority-share is related to immigration-attitudes is conditional on egohood segregation: only egohoods becoming ethnically diverse and segregated see anti-immigrant sentiment increase; egohoods becoming ethnically diverse and integrated actually see anti-immigrant sentiment decrease. This conditioning-relationship exhibits a (broadly monotonic) bell-curve relationship across egohood-scales, peaking around a 3500/4000 metres radius.