Multilevel survey analysis reveals fewer inter-ethnic friendships in segregated neighborhoods, indicating that lower education amplifies the isolating effects of residential segregation.
This study aims to shed new light on the role of ethnic residential segregation in explaining immigrants' inter-ethnic friendships with host-society members. Using multilevel regression techniques, the analyses draw on individual-level survey data from a large metropolitan area in Germany, supplemented with contextual-level measures of ethnic residential segregation. Controlling for well-known individual characteristics, the results bring new evidence that friendships of immigrants with host-society members are less prevalent in residential areas with greater degrees of ethnic segregation. The strength of this negative association, however, proves to be contingent on immigrants' educational attainment: the lower an immigrant's level of educational attainment, the stronger the negative association between ethnic residential segregation and their inter-ethnic friendships. This cross-level interaction suggests that the role of ethnic residential segregation in shaping the inter-ethnic friendships of immigrants is more nuanced than indicated by most previous research.
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Elmar Schlueter (2011) studied this question.
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