Laura Fürsich

Buffers or Cascades? How Preferences Moderate the Effect of Consolidation on Segregation.

With Martin Arvidsson

Segregation dynamics depend on both the preferences governing residential mobility and the multidimensional population structure in which those preferences operate, yet how the two interact remains undertheorized. Focusing on ethnic segregation, we use agent-based models to examine how the effect of consolidation—the degree of alignment between social dimensions, here ethnicity and income—depends on the preference regime. We identify individuals whose attribute combinations run against the prevailing correlation structure, what we call “cross-cutting neighbors”, as pivotal actors whose role reverses across regimes. Under similarity-based preferences, where attractiveness increases with attribute overlap, cross-cutting neighbors stabilize mixed neighborhoods by providing bridging similarity, so weakening consolidation (more cross-cutting neighbors) dampens tipping and reduces segregation. Under status-ordered preferences encoding upward striving and downward avoidance, cross-cutting neighbors instead trigger mobility cascades: affluent-minority entrants into majority neighborhoods attract poorer co-ethnic followers, prompting exit among affluent-majority incumbents. Descriptive analyses of Swedish register data yield patterns consistent with this cascade sequencing. Together, the findings demonstrate that identical changes in population structure can produce opposite segregation responses depending on the preference regime, underscoring the need to theorize population structure and preference structure jointly.