The ethnoracial context of residential mobility in France: Neighbourhood out-migration and relocation

Recent research from France has used census data to explore patterns of residential segregation among immigrants and natives. Yet few studies explore how residential mobility underpins these patterns. This article draws on recent panel data (1990–2013) to explore how the ethnoracial composition of neighbourhoods impacts moving among first and second generation immigrants and natives. Two hypotheses are explored: ethnic clustering, or reduced out-mobility of immigrants and their offspring from coethnic neighbourhoods, and native flight, or the departure of natives from immigrant neighbourhoods. This article is the only to measure these processes in France at the neighbourhood level, on both first and second generation immigrants, using panel models that control for individual and neighbourhood heterogeneity. The findings document a significant negative effect of the neighbourhood coethnic share on moving out among first and second generation immigrants that remains strong over all time periods. In contrast, the French majority are more likely to exit areas with increasing shares of immigrants, except in models controlling for unobserved neighbourhood characteristics. Moving destinations across groups are also analysed and show that non-Europeans enter neighbourhoods with substantially higher immigrant shares net of controls