Ethnic minority households and residential segregation: how important is the household composition to understand where minorities live?

Ad Coenen, Ghent University
Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe, Ghent University
Bart Van de Putte, Ghent University

Despite the importance of life cycle and household characteristics for residential mobility, these factors are seldom considered in the extensive field of ethnic residential segregation research. This study integrates the household composition of ethnic minorities into the spatial assimilation theory, the ethnic enclave theory and the self-segregation theory. We investigate the relationship between the type of household and living in a concentration neighbourhood for Turkish and North-African origin households. Moreover, we distinguish between both higher-educated and lower-educated people. For these purposes, we use a selection of the Belgian census data of 2011 (N=126,451). We used multilevel binary logistic regression analyses comparing families with children, childless couples and single and living alone households. We find clear associations between living in a Turkish of North-African concentration neighbourhood and the household type: families with children are more likely to live in concentration neighbourhoods than childless couples. Moreover, only lower educated families with children are more likely to live in concentration neighbourhoods than lower educated singles. Higher educated families are equally likely to live in a non-concentration neighbourhood as higher educated single and living alone households.