Immigrant peers in the class: Effects on natives’ long-run revealed preferences

Previous research from the U.S. has suggested that black-white interaction in school can reduce prejudice and increase the prevalence of interracial relationships. We test whether this result holds also for natives and immigrants in Europe – groups whose interaction is plausibly more constrained by religious and cultural differences. Specifically, we study whether exposure to immigrant origin peers in school affects natives’ probability to have a child with a partner with non-Western background. Identification is based on variation in immigrant exposure across cohorts within schools in Sweden. We find that natives are affected by exposure to opposite-sex peers: native girls (boys) are more likely to have a child with a partner with non-Western background when exposed to immigrant origin boys (girls). In contrast to previous studies, we find no effects from same-sex peer exposure.