The impact of ethnic diversity on well-being and health

Demographic trends reveal that modern societies have become more heterogeneous in their ethnic composition.  Existing research examines the impact of ethnic diversity on critical variables such as economic performance and neighbourhood trust. However, today’s increasing diversity poses a range of challenges, as people living in mixed neighbourhoods have contact with new cultures, norms, and values, or choose to avoid such encounters. It remains unknown how diversity may affect people’s quality of life.

This project will work at the intersection of various social sciences to study how ethnic diversity impacts people’s well-being and health.  Using several years of cross-country and national data (World Values Survey, Latino Barometro, European Social Survey, UK Longitudinal Household Study, National Child Development Study) it will examine its effect on subjective measures of health and well-being and explore opportunities for innovative biological analyses.

The findings will identify risk factors as well as positive aspects of diversity that will inform leaders and policy makers in planning the broad range of diversity-related challenges of modern societies.

This project is one of three funded by the Nuffield Foundation that will be working closely together to better understand the drivers of individuals’ well-being.

The other projects are:

• Immigration and well-being
• Investigating people-place effects in the UK