Caught between Cultures: Unintended Consequences of Improving Opportunity for Immigrant Girls
Review of Economic Studies · 2021 · Gordon B. Dahl、Christina Felfe、Paul Frijters、Helmut Rainer
中文摘要
当移民女孩获得更多融入职场和社会的机会，而其父母却更看重传统文化结果时，会发生什么？我们在一项改革的背景下回答这一问题。该改革赋予2000年1月1日之后在德国出生且符合条件的移民儿童自动出生公民权。利用我们从57所学校的学生中收集的调查数据，并比较改革前后数月出生的学生，我们发现，出生公民权的引入使移民女孩的生活满意度和自尊指标分别降低了0.32和0.25个标准差。这一结果在穆斯林群体中尤其明显，其父母可能比女儿更偏好传统文化结果。此外，我们发现，获得出生公民权的穆斯林女孩融入德国社会的程度更低：她们在社交上更加孤立，自我认同为德国人的可能性也更低。在探究福祉和同化程度出现这些非预期下降的机制时，我们发现，如果女儿出生于改革之后，穆斯林移民父母对女儿学校教育的投入更少，这些女儿在校成绩也更差。父母与这些女儿使用德语交谈的可能性也更低。与家庭内部冲突增加相一致，出生公民权带来了幻灭感：穆斯林移民女孩认为自己实现教育目标的机会降低，并且认为自己不得不为了家庭放弃事业的可能性上升。相比之下，移民男孩的福祉、融入程度和学业结果即便受到影响，也有所改善。总体而言，这些发现表明，父母推动移民女孩遵从传统文化所规定的角色，而男孩则被允许利用公民身份带来的机会。为解释这些发现，我们在Akerlof和Kranton（2000）的基础上构建了一个简单的博弈论模型。在该模型中，重视身份认同的父母在面临女儿融入社会所带来的威胁时，会限制女儿的选择，从而降低女儿的福祉。其他模型分别能够解释其中的部分发现。
Abstract
Abstract What happens when immigrant girls are given increased opportunities to integrate into the workplace and society, but their parents value more traditional cultural outcomes? We answer this question in the context of a reform which granted automatic birthright citizenship to eligible immigrant children born in Germany after 1 January 2000. Using survey data, we collected from students in 57 schools and comparing those born in the months before vs. after the reform, we find the introduction of birthright citizenship lowers measures of life satisfaction and self-esteem for immigrant girls by 0.32 and 0.25 standard deviations, respectively. This is especially true for Muslims, where parents are likely to prefer more traditional cultural outcomes than their daughters. Moreover, we find that Muslim girls granted birthright citizenship are less integrated into German society: they are both more socially isolated and less likely to self-identify as German. Exploring mechanisms for these unintended drops in well-being and assimilation, we find that immigrant Muslim parents invest less in their daughters’ schooling and that these daughters receive worse grades in school if they are born after the reform. Parents are also less likely to speak German with these daughters. Consistent with a rise in intra-family conflict, birthright citizenship results in disillusionment where immigrant Muslim girls believe their chances of achieving their educational goals are lower and the perceived odds of having to forgo a career for a family rise. In contrast, immigrant boys experience, if anything, an improvement in well-being, integration, and schooling outcomes. Taken together, the findings point towards immigrant girls being pushed by parents to conform to a role within traditional culture, whereas boys are allowed to take advantage of the opportunities that come with citizenship. To explain these findings, we construct a simple game-theoretic model which builds on Akerlof and Kranton (2000), where identity-concerned parents constrain their daughter’s choices, and hence lower their daughter’s well-being, when faced with the threat of integration. Alternative models can explain some of the findings in isolation.