Exposure to Natives and Cultural Assimilation

Abstract

This paper studies whether a lower presence of natives during immigrants’ childhood and adolescence impedes their cultural assimilation. I examine a culturally charged consumption - the usage of hormonal contraceptives by young immigrant women - and leverage the quasi-random allocation of asylum seekers in the Netherlands to identify causal effects. While exposure to native peers has a positive effect on educational attainment, I find at most a modest effect on cultural outcomes in this context. Results from alternative identification strategies confirm that exposure may not have a large effect on cultural assimilation.