Empowering through proximity: How female neighbors serve as network ties and role models for refugee women

While the fundamental link between place and inequality is well investigated, causal studies on neighborhood effects are limited. Using nationwide administrative data from Germany and a quasi-experimental identification approach, we investigate how employed network ties and role models in the residential neighborhood shape individual-level employment. In exploiting variation over time, within cities and between 1x1 kilometer grid cells, we provide a causal estimate of gendered neighborhood employment effects on refugee women's employment probability. Results support direct job referral effects of full-time employed female neighbors, which is most potent for other neighborhood women from refugee countries. Analyses of locally prevalent female work norms show a positive one-off effect of higher part-time employment shares of native neighbors indicating that neighbors serve as role models only before other structures are settled. In analyzing neighborhood effects by sex and nationality, our study reveals that even weak neighborhood ties can provide valuable resources for disadvantaged social groups in the labor market. Hence, the study stresses the necessity to break down dichotomies such as gender and ethnicity when not only explaining but also finding alternative pathways for circumventing combined hurdles of intersectionality.