A Danish Tale of Why Social Mix Is So Difficult to Increase

Abstract

One of the political expectations to area-based intervention is to reduce the number of deprived neighbourhoods by increasing social mix. This paper considers the impact of area-based intervention on social mix in deprived neighbourhoods. We apply a difference-in-difference model to estimate the effect using Danish longitudinal data on individual level for 1989–2006. We find that area-based intervention has no significant effect on social mix neither in respect to mix of educational background, employment mix, income mix nor ethnic mix. Instead, we find a strong residential selection as residents moving out of treated neighbourhoods have a Danish origin, a stronger affiliation to labour market and a higher disposable income compared to residents moving in treated neighbourhoods. This demonstrates that residents moving in are more socio-economically vulnerable than those residents moving out. We conclude that area-based intervention becomes shorthanded when it comes to increasing social mix because area-based intervention is up against a strong residential selection in moving pattern.

Keywords::

• Social housing
• neighbourhoods
• social mix
• effect
• area-based intervention

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Danish Council for Independent Research, Social Science [275-06-0219].