IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwsop/diw_sp1130.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hate Is Too Great a Burden to Bear: Hate Crimes and the Mental Health of Refugees

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Graeber
  • Felicitas Schikora

Abstract

Against a background of increasing violence against non-natives, we estimate the effect of hate crime on refugees’ mental health in Germany. For this purpose, we combine two datasets: administrative records on xenophobic crime against refugee shelters by the Federal Criminal Office and the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. We apply a regression discontinuity design in time to estimate the effect of interest. Our results indicate that hate crime has a substantial negative effect on several mental health indicators, including the Mental Component Summary score and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 score. The effects are stronger for refugees with closer geographic proximity to the focal hate crime and refugees with low country-specific human capital. While the estimated effect is only transitory, we argue that negative mental health shocks during the critical period after arrival have important long-term consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Graeber & Felicitas Schikora, 2021. "Hate Is Too Great a Burden to Bear: Hate Crimes and the Mental Health of Refugees," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1130, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1130
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.817742.de/diw_sp1130.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Petra Persson & Maya Rossin-Slater, 2018. "Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 1214-1252, April.
    2. Robert Metcalfe & Nattavudh Powdthavee & Paul Dolan, 2011. "Destruction and Distress: Using a Quasi‐Experiment to Show the Effects of the September 11 Attacks on Mental Well‐Being in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(550), pages 81-103, February.
    3. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4, June.
    4. Petra Persson & Maya Rossin-Slater, 2018. "Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 1256-1263, April.
    5. Leonardo Bursztyn & Georgy Egorov & Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova, 2019. "Social Media and Xenophobia: Evidence from Russia," NBER Working Papers 26567, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    7. Jane Cooley Fruehwirth & Sriya Iyer & Anwen Zhang, 2019. "Religion and Depression in Adolescence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(3), pages 1178-1209.
    8. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2020. "Simple Local Polynomial Density Estimators," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 115(531), pages 1449-1455, July.
    9. Marcus, Jan, 2013. "The Effect of Unemployment on the Mental Health of Spouses – Evidence from plant closures in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 546-558.
    10. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier & Elsayed, Ahmed, 2020. "Global terror, well-being and political attitudes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    11. Matthias Nübling & Hanfried H. Andersen & Axel Mühlbacher & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2007. "Computation of Standard Values for Physical and Mental Health Scale Scores Using the SOEP Version of SF12v2," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 171-182.
    12. Andrew Gelman & Guido Imbens, 2019. "Why High-Order Polynomials Should Not Be Used in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 447-456, July.
    13. Achyuta Adhvaryu & James Fenske & Anant Nyshadham, 2019. "Early Life Circumstance and Adult Mental Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1516-1549.
    14. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    15. Deole, Sumit S., 2019. "Justice delayed is assimilation denied: Right-wing terror and immigrants' assimilation in Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 69-78.
    16. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie & Valentina Duque, 2018. "Childhood Circumstances and Adult Outcomes: Act II," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1360-1446, December.
    17. Catherine Hausman & David S. Rapson, 2018. "Regression Discontinuity in Time: Considerations for Empirical Applications," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 533-552, October.
    18. Frank Schilbach & Heather Schofield & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2016. "The Psychological Lives of the Poor," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 435-440, May.
    19. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell & Roc ́ıo Titiunik, 2017. "rdrobust: Software for regression-discontinuity designs," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(2), pages 372-404, June.
    20. Entorf, Horst & Lange, Martin, 2019. "Refugees welcome? Understanding the regional heterogeneity of anti-foreigner hate crimes in Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-005, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    21. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    22. Eibich, Peter, 2015. "Understanding the Effect of Retirement on Health: Mechanisms and Heterogeneity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43, pages 1-12.
    23. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    24. Edward P. Lazear, 2021. "Why Are Some Immigrant Groups More Successful Than Others?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 115-133.
    25. Hofmann, Sarah & Mühlenweg, Andrea, 2018. "Learning intensity effects in students’ mental and physical health – Evidence from a large scale natural experiment in Germany," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 216-234.
    26. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3, June.
    27. Karsten Müller & Carlo Schwarz, 2021. "Fanning the Flames of Hate: Social Media and Hate Crime [Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 2131-2167.
    28. Ryan Brown, 2020. "The Intergenerational Impact of Terror: Did the 9/11 Tragedy Impact the Initial Human Capital of the Next Generation?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1459-1481, August.
    29. Alan B. Krueger & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 1997. "A Statistical Analysis of Crime against Foreigners in Unified Germany," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(1), pages 182-209.
    30. Andrew E. Clark & Orla Doyle & Elena Stancanelli, 2017. "The Impact of Terrorism on Well-being: Evidence from the Boston Marathon Bombing," Working Papers 201717, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    31. Armin Falk & Andreas Kuhn & Josef Zweimüller, 2011. "Unemployment and Right‐wing Extremist Crime," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 113(2), pages 260-285, June.
    32. Corey Keyes, 2006. "Subjective Well-Being in Mental Health and Human Development Research Worldwide: An Introduction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 77(1), pages 1-10, May.
    33. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie, 2011. "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 153-172, Summer.
    34. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    35. Steinhardt, Max F., 2018. "The Impact of Xenophobic Violence on the Integration of Immigrants," IZA Discussion Papers 11781, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    36. Andrew E Clark & Orla Doyle & Elena Stancanelli, 2020. "The Impact of Terrorism on Individual Well-Being: Evidence from the Boston Marathon Bombing," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(631), pages 2065-2104.
    37. Dustmann, Christian, 2000. "Temporary Migration and Economic Assimilation," IZA Discussion Papers 186, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    38. Dustmann, Christian, 1997. "Differences in the labor market behavior between temporary and permanent migrant women," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 29-46, March.
    39. Gary S. Becker & Yona Rubinstein, 2011. "Fear and the Response to Terrorism: An Economic Analysis," CEP Discussion Papers dp1079, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    40. David E. Bloom & Elizabeth Cafiero & Eva Jané-Llopis & Shafika Abrahams-Gessel & Lakshmi Reddy Bloom & Sana Fathima & Andrea B. Feigl & Tom Gaziano & Ali Hamandi & Mona Mowafi & Danny O’Farrell & Emre, 2012. "The Global Economic Burden of Noncommunicable Diseases," PGDA Working Papers 8712, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    41. Lewis R. Gale & Will Carrington Heath & Rand W. Ressler, 2002. "An Economic Analysis of Hate Crime," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 203-216, Spring.
    42. Dustmann, C, 1993. "Earnings Adjustment of Temporary Migrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 6(2), pages 153-168, May.
    43. Andrew E Clark & Orla Doyle & Elena Stancanelli, 0. "The Impact of Terrorism on Individual Well-Being: Evidence from the Boston Marathon Bombing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(631), pages 2065-2104.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Hate Is Too Great a Burden to Bear: Hate Crimes and the Mental Health of Refugees
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2021-05-19 16:14:31

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jaschke Philipp & Sulin Sardoschau & Marco Tabellini, 2021. "Scared Straight? Threat and Assimilation of Refugees in Germany," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2136, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    2. Philipp Jaschke & Sulin Sardoschau & Marco Tabellini, 2023. "Scared Straight? Threat and Assimilation of Refugees in Germany," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 384, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    3. Jaschke, Philipp & Sardoschau, Sulin & Tabellini, Marco, 2021. "Scared Straight? Threat and Assimilation of Refugees in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 14962, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Jacopo Bassetto & Teresa Freitas Monteiro, 2024. "Immigrants’ Returns Intentions and Job Search Behavior When the Home Country Is Unsafe," CESifo Working Paper Series 10908, CESifo.
    5. Michael Christian Lehmann, 2023. "Macroeconomic volatility and anti‐refugee violence in developing countries: Evidence from commodity price shocks," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 992-1012, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stancanelli, Elena G. F., 2023. "British Voting Intentions and the Far Reach of 11 September Terrorist Attacks in New York," IZA Discussion Papers 16120, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    3. Mirza, Daniel & Stancanelli, Elena & Verdier, Thierry, 2022. "Household expenditure in the wake of terrorism: Evidence from high frequency in-home-scanner data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    4. Burgherr, David, 2022. "Behavioral Responses to a Pension Savings Mandate : Quasi-experimental Evidence from Swiss Tax Data," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 645, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    5. Atay, Salim & Asik, Gunes A. & Tumen, Semih, 2023. "Impact of Graduating with Honors on Entry Wages of Economics Majors," IZA Discussion Papers 16080, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Endrich, Marek, 2020. "The good tourist, the bad refugee and the ugly German: Xenophobic activities and tourism," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224604, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Keita, Sekou & Schewe, Paul, 2021. "Out of sight, out of mind? Terror in the home country, family reunification options, and the well-being of refugees," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    8. Hansen, Benjamin & Miller, Keaton & Weber, Caroline, 2020. "Federalism, partial prohibition, and cross-border sales: Evidence from recreational marijuana," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    9. Gurgand, Marc & Lorenceau, Adrien & Mélonio, Thomas, 2023. "Student loans: Credit constraints and higher education in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    10. Babii, Andrii & Kumar, Rohit, 2023. "Isotonic regression discontinuity designs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 371-393.
    11. Andrew McEachin & Thurston Domina & Andrew Penner, 2020. "Heterogeneous Effects of Early Algebra across California Middle Schools," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 772-800, June.
    12. Cuong Viet Nguyen & Finn Tarp, 2023. "Cash Transfers and Labor Supply: New Evidence on Impacts and Mechanisms," DERG working paper series 23-18, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Development Economics Research Group (DERG).
    13. Matteo Picchio & Jan C. van Ours, 2020. "Mental Health Effects of Retirement," De Economist, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 419-452, September.
    14. Blaise Melly & Rafael Lalive, 2020. "Estimation, Inference, and Interpretation in the Regression Discontinuity Design," Diskussionsschriften dp2016, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    15. Kettlewell, Nathan & Siminski, Peter, 2020. "Optimal Model Selection in RDD and Related Settings Using Placebo Zones," IZA Discussion Papers 13639, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Hérault, Nicolas & Vu, Ha & Wilkins, Roger, 2020. "The effect of job search requirements on welfare receipt," GLO Discussion Paper Series 646, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Wang, Yadong & Wang, Delu & Shi, Xunpeng, 2022. "Exploring the multidimensional effects of China's coal de-capacity policy: A regression discontinuity design," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    18. Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik, 2022. "Regression Discontinuity Designs," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 821-851, August.
    19. Bahrs, Michael & Schumann, Mathias, 2016. "Unlucky to Be Young? The Long-Term Effects of School Starting Age on Smoking Behaviour and Health," hche Research Papers 13, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).
    20. de Souza, Laeticia R. & de Xavier Pinto, Cristine Campos & Queiroz, Bernardo L & de Oliveira e Silva, Dimitri, 2021. "Peer effects in college: how peers' performance can influence students' academic outcomes," SocArXiv 7n6ks, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mental health; hate crime; migration; refugees; human capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1130. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sodiwde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.