Kin Propinquity, Residential Mobility, and the Persistence of Segregation

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between kin propinquity, residential mobility, and the persistence of segregation among ancestry groups living in Stockholm, Sweden. Residential segregation between Swedish and non-Swedish ancestry groups is established when immigrants first settle in Stockholm, which creates disparities in the spatial distribution of kin for the children of immigrants compared with their Swedish counterparts. Using agent-based models, we show how preferences to live near kin are sufficient to maintain existing segregation but are not sufficient to generate it. We then apply discrete choice models of residential mobility to longitudinal residential history data from Swedish population registers to estimate the effects of kin on the neighborhood choices of movers, ages 18‒30, during the 1998‒2017 period. We find that people are more likely to move to neighborhoods that are near to kin, net of controls for sorting by ancestry, socioeconomic status, and life course characteristics. Counterfactual simulations of residential mobility show that kin propinquity contributes to higher levels of segregation between Swedish and non-Swedish ancestry groups. These effects are larger for groups already experiencing high levels of segregation from the Swedish majority. We situate these findings in the emerging literature on social structural sorting.