Hating and Mating

Interesting paper on refugees, sex ratios and mating competition in Germany.

Hating and Mating: 
Fears over Mate Competition and Violent Hate Crime against Refugees

Abstract

... Employing a comprehensive dataset on the incidence of hate crime across Germany, we first demonstrate that hate crime rises where men face disadvantages in local mating markets. Next, we deploy an original four-wave panel survey to confirm that support for hate crime increases when men fear that the inflow of refugees makes it more difficult to find female partners. Mate competition concerns remain a robust predictor even when controlling for anti-refugee views, perceived job competition, general frustration, and aggressiveness. We conclude that a more complete understanding of hate crime must incorporate mating markets and mate competition.

Discussion and Conclusion

In this paper we have turned the spotlight on an overlooked topic in the study of anti- migrant behavior: mate competition. We have shown that municipalities where native men find themselves disadvantaged in mating markets are more likely to be the sites of violent, anti-refugee crime. In particular, an excess number of males is a strong predictor of hate crime, and this relationship holds controlling for variety of economic, social, and political variables that could correlate with skewed sex ratios and hate crime.

...

Returning to our substantive findings, our survey allows us to test the micro-foundations underlying our ecological results. We demonstrate that perceived refugee-native mate com- petition is significantly higher among men who live in municipalities characterized by a mat- ing squeeze, and we further show that this perception is linked to support for hate crimes. This relationship between perceived mate competition and support for hate crimes remains even while controlling for leading alternative explanations related to economic competition, xenophobia, frustration, and aggressiveness.

...

Strategies to improve immigrant integration have in turn focused on the importance of creating inter-cultural dialogue alongside addressing economic opportunities for both migrants and natives. Though surely valuable, our study shows that these initiatives should be cognizant of another dimension of conflict, especially if migrants are disproportionately young men and are placed in areas with excess males where native men are already primed to conceive of male outsiders as competitors on the mating market. Competition over mates is neither specifically a cultural nor an economic phenomenon. Nor is the search for partners fleeting: it represents an enduring aspect of the human condition. As such, approaches that emphasize cultural and economic routes might be incomplete and divert our attention from other inherent structural predicaments.

...

And they conclude:

Risk assessment strategies should be in place that identify areas deemed more prone to violence based on structural features. Our evidence makes clear that local sex ratios must be part of such assessments.