Oppositional identities and the labor market

Harminder Battu; McDonald Mwale; Yves Zenou

doi:10.1007/s00148-006-0093-8

Oppositional identities and the labor market

Harminder Battu, McDonald Mwale, Yves Zenou

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review Article › Research › peer-review

70 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We develop a model in which nonwhite individuals are defined with respect to their social environment (family, friends, and neighbors) and their attachments to their culture of origin (religion or language), and in which jobs are mainly found through social networks. We find that depending on how strong peer pressures are, nonwhites choose to adopt "oppositional" identities because some individuals may identify with the dominant culture and others may reject that culture, even if it implies adverse labor market outcomes.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	643-667
Number of pages	25
Journal	Journal of Population Economics
Volume	20
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-006-0093-8
Publication status	Published - Jul 2007
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Ethnic minorities
Identity
Multiple equilibria
Social networks
White's norm

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10.1007/s00148-006-0093-8

Cite this

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Oppositional identities and the labor market

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

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