Residential ethno-religious diversity, social

capital & health perceptions among residents

in England.

K.S Russell Jonsson

Why residential diversity?

Projections indicate that residential diversity & plural residential areas will be the norm in the future

Mixed ethnic group almost doubled bet. 2001 & 2011 census

1 in 8 households report more than one ethnic group

Geographic spread of ethnic groups has changed

DIVERSITY & SOCIAL CAPITAL

Increased social interaction through increased inter-marriage &

interethnic friendships (Muttarak 2013)

Enhanced labour market outcomes, diversified networks, brings

about different connections & information ( Muttarak 2014)

Increased levels of social cohesion; greater feelings that people

get on well; reduced expressions & experiences of discrimination

& greater tolerance of individual difference (Becares et al.2012)

Increased interethnic trust (Laurance 2009)

Diversity,social capital & health

Diversity associated with better mental & self-reported healthafter controlling for area deprivation(Becares et al. 2012)

Religious diversity ???

Modest positive relationship between social capital & self-reported health(Kawachi 2006;Gilbert 2008)

Mixed results on relationship between diversity & social capital (Lancee & Dronkers 2010; Letki 2008; Putnam 2007; Tolsma et al. 2009)

Proposed contribution

Policy and public health debate given diversity is increasing.

Disentangle the mixed findings on ethnic health inequalities.

Use of a hybrid definition of diversity.

Questions

(1)Does health perceptions vary among individuals living in

diverse neighbourhoods by ethnicity and religion?

(2) What is the effect of neighbourhood level social capital on

the health perceptions of individuals living in a diverse

neighbourhood?

(3) Does neighborhood relationships mediate the association

between living in diverse neighbourhood environments and

individual health perceptions?

Data & Analysis

Geocoded data from the 2009-2012 Citizenship Survey

Diversity scores derived from 2011 Census Data, merged to

CS by means of neighbourhood codes

The final sample 18,441 individuals across 1,993

neighbourhood

MSOAs=neighbourhood

Fractionalisation=diversity

Statistical Analysis =Multilevel modelling

Controls: Age, gender, marital status, level of education attainment, indicator for 1st generation migrants, ethnicity, religion

Controls: Age, gender, marital status, level of education attainment, indicator for 1st generation migrants, ethnicity, religion

Conclusion

Ethno-religious neighbourhood diversity associated with negative health perceptions

Effect is attenuated with the inclusion of neighbourhood level socioeconomic status

Institutional, social trust and social cohesion is associated with good health.

civic participation, having a diverse and informal social networks is related to small but more negative perceptions of health.

With the exception of blacks and Muslims individuals of all ethnicity have bad health perceptions in homogeneous neighbourhoods in comparison to whites.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Explanatory Variables

Individual level explanatory variablesincluded in all models were : Age, gender, marital status, level of education attainment, indicator for 1st generation migrants, ethnicity, religion.

Neighbourhood socio-economic status was measured by the Income domain of the index of deprivation. This variable is coded so that lower scores indicate less deprivation and more advantage, thus higher score indicate the reverse.

middle super output layer (MSOAs):residential size of 5,000 individuals & 3,000 households, with an average population size of 7,500

Neighbourhood residential diversity wasmeasured using a hybrid measure of twodimensions of individual level identity, ethnicityand religion (ethno-religious diversity). Onlygroups deemed to have a large presence wereused, that is groups that were greater than30,000. Ethnoreligious composition of eachneighbourhood was measured by the index offractionalisation (ELF) & this represents theproportion of each ethno-religious groupresiding in each MSOA.

The index of fractionalization: produces a single scorebased on the relative sizes of all the different groups withina given area and this ranges from 0 to 1. A high scoremeans that there is a high probability that two peopledrawn randomly from the area will belong to differentgroups & therefore that the area is highly diverse.

Table 1. Scale Measures for Neighbourhood Relationship Variables

Social cohesion

Whether agrees that the local area is a place where people from different

backgrounds get on well together

Informal social interaction

Whether have mixed socially with people at least once a month in the past year

including while volunteering (formally or informally)?

Whether have mixed socially with people at least once a month in the past year

including while volunteering (formally or informally)?

Diverse social Network

What proportion of your friends are of the same ethnic group as you?

What proportion of your friends are of the same religious as you?

What proportion of your friends are of the same age as you?

Social trust

I'd now like to ask you how you view other people. Generally speaking, would

you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in

dealing with people?

Would you say that (1) many of the people in your neighbourhood can be

trusted,(2) some can be trusted, (3) a few can be trusted,(4) or that none of the

people in your neighbourhood can be trusted? (5) SPONTANEOUS ONLY:

Just moved here

Institutional trust

How much do you trust.... (1)Your local council, (2) Parliament and (3) the

Police? Possible responses provided were (a) a lot (b) A fair amount (c) not

very much and (d) not at all

Civic participation

Whether given any informal voluntary help in last 12m

Whether given any informal voluntary help in last 12m

Whether gave voluntary help through employer scheme in last 12m

Whether participated in any civic participation activity in last 12m

Any civic activism or consultation in past 12 months

Note: Neighbourhood level variables were derived from aggregating individual

level responses.