Not in my kitchen? : Ethnic discrimination and discrimination intentions in shared housing among university students in Germany

Abstract

This article looks into the scope and causes of both ethnic discrimination intentions and discriminatory behaviour in the sphere of close private interactions. In practice, German students' willingness to move into flats which would be shared with a Turkish student is analysed by conducting a direct survey, a factorial survey and a field experiment. Results show that, independent of the method used, ethnic discrimination against Turks does not, overall, play a substantial role among university students looking for a place to stay. However, data from the factorial survey and from the field experiment reveal that ethnic discrimination does occur in specific scenarios: while male applicants, in particular, prefer places inhabited by females, this is only the case if the females are German. In sum, our analyses demonstrate that the gender dimension needs to be taken into account when investigating discrimination intentions and ethnic discrimination in the field of close private interactions.