During the Brexit referendum, it was noticeable that areas with the most immigration were most supportive of remaining in the EU.  The findings of a recent study from Harvard University and Boston University should perhaps come as no surprise, therefore, as it concludes that areas where white boys grow up surrounded by Black neighbors are areas where those white boys are more likely to vote Democrat as adults.

The researchers compared data from the 1940 Census with voter behavior as children in that cohort reached voting age.  The study originated in order to examine whether exposure to other races reduces any negativity felt towards.  Previous studies into the issue have tended to involve very short periods of time.  By focusing on voter behavior the researchers believe they produce a more realistic perspective on the phenomenon.

Voter behavior

The 1940 Census was a perfect tool to use as data was collected door-to-door, with one’s neighbors therefore determined by the proximity of those in the data.  In other words, data about your neighbors would be next to data about yourself.  This allowed the researchers to isolate white families who happened to live next door to Black families.

The next step was to try and measure the racial attitudes of the boys later in life (girls weren’t chosen because the tendency for girls to change their surname when they marry made it hard to track them throughout life).  Voter registration was the most effective proxy found as previous work had aligned Democrat voters with being more tolerant of people from different races than Republicans.  Voter rolls are also open to the public so it was an accessible data source.

The data revealed that white boys who had grown up next to a Black family were up to 4.2 times as likely to vote Democrat that boys who had grown up next to white neighbors.  What’s more, this phenomenon was growing as it was up to 5.3 times as likely to do so in 2017.