This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. American Economic Review
  4. Search Results
  5. Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building

Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building

  • Samuel Bazzi
  • Arya Gaduh
  • Alexander D. Rothenberg
  • Maisy Wong
American Economic Review
vol. 109, no. 11, November 2019
(pp. 3978-4025)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

Abstract

We use a population resettlement program in Indonesia to identify long-run effects of intergroup contact on national integration. In the 1980s, the government relocated two million ethnically diverse migrants into hundreds of new communities. We find greater integration in fractionalized communities with many small groups, as measured by national language use at home, intermarriage, and children's name choices. However, in polarized communities with a few large groups, ethnic attachment increases and integration declines. Residential segregation dampens these effects. Social capital, public goods, and ethnic conflict follow similar patterns. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of localized contact in shaping identity.

Citation

Bazzi, Samuel, Arya Gaduh, Alexander D. Rothenberg, and Maisy Wong. 2019. "Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building." American Economic Review, 109 (11): 3978-4025. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20180174

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
  • J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
  • J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
  • J18 Demographic Economics: Public Policy
  • O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
  • R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
  • Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification