According to research published in Science Advances, childhood exposure to black neighbors predicts Democratic partisanship in white American men, over 70 years later.
Some scholars have argued that ethnic diversity among a population can result in social inefficiencies such as discrimination, as well as social and political instability. Throughout human evolution intergroup conflict may have resulted in a ‘liberal dilemma’ of associating ethnic diversity with social inefficiencies. Thus, intergroup relationships could potentially reduce prejudice and increase harmony in diverse societies, particularly if contact across social groups is made during adolescence.
In this work, Jacob R. Brown and colleagues examine the link between adolescent inter-ethnic contact as it relates to socio-political behavior decades later.
Drawing data from the 1940 U.S. Decennial Census, the researchers linked information on the residential context of children living in the United States in 1940 to the political behavior of those still living and registered to vote 6-7 decades later. When registering to vote, voters declare a political party affiliation in most U.S. states; this was used to measure individuals’ psychological association with a party. In the states of California, North Carolina, and Nebraska, citizens must also provide their place of birth when registering to vote, allowing the accurate matching of 1940 residential data to voting behavior. As such, the researchers focused on people currently living in these states. However, these individuals were spread across 3088 of 3108 U.S. counties in 1940.
These analyses focused on men, given changing one’s surname at marriage was common practice for women, rendering it difficult to link data. Racial exposure was defined by the presence of another-race neighbor, and their relative proximity to the individual. The final dataset included over 650,000 individuals.
The researchers found that white men who had a black neighbor in 1940 (vs. those who did not) were more likely to be associated with racially liberal politics, via their registration with the Democratic Party, as late as 2017. This relationship remained even when comparing individuals who lived in the same neighborhood, but had different levels of cross-ethnic exposure. The association between cross-ethnic contact in early life and sociopolitical behavior 7 decades later was consistent across different regions of the country, different levels of population density, and when controlling for household characteristics.
Despite intervening life experiences throughout this period, such as many of these men partaking in military service, the relationship between early life cross-ethnic exposure and party registration remained. Given the persistence of this association, the researchers argue that despite potential short term social inefficacies associated with racial diversity, the positive effects of social harmony could be long lasting.
Alternative explanations for this finding, such as the relationship being driven by white individuals with racially liberal attitudes self-selecting to live next to black individuals, did not explain the observed relationship.
The research, “Childhood cross-ethnic exposure predicts political behavior seven decades later: Evidence from linked administrative data”, was authored by Jacob R. Brown, Ryan D. Enos, James Feigenbaum, and Soumyajit Mazumder.