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Immigration Solicitors

“No evidence” immigration damages social cohesion (8 April 2015)

Date: 08/04/2015
Duncan Lewis, Immigration Solicitors, “No evidence” immigration damages social cohesion

A new briefing paper from the Adam Smith Institute has found that ethnic diversity in communities across the UK does not have a negative effect on social cohesion.

The paper The Ties that Bind: An Analysis of the Relationship between Social Cohesion, Diversity and Immigration is a review of academic studies on the relationship between immigration and social cohesion in Europe, the UK and the United States.

Online publisher WiredGov reports that research examining immigration in London finds that, once economic deprivation in a region is factored in, higher levels of ethnic diversity have a positive effect on social cohesion.

The paper finds, however, that London’s relationship with immigration cannot be compared directly with the rest of the UK, however – but the majority of migrants coming to Britain settle in the capital.

The study says that once factors such as economic deprivation and neighbourhood status are taken into account in estimating the effect of immigration on an area in the UK, any negative relationship between diversity in an area and social cohesion is eradicated.

The paper concludes that that higher levels of diversity only lead to a slight, negative impact on generalised trust within UK communities – and there is “virtually no evidence to suggest” that diversity undermines other measures of social cohesion, such as civic participation, trust in authority and volunteer work in the UK.

The report’s author, James Dobson, said:

“Immigration continues to be one of the most important and controversial issues in British politics.

“While the economic debate surrounding migration is well-rehearsed, the social impact of migration has frequently been neglected.

“Politicians have often claimed that migration damages community cohesion, but the evidence for this claim is far from clear.”

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