The Perils of Diversity

From the abstract to a new, paywalled paper titled The Misery of Diversity:

Evolutionary accounts assert that while diversity may lower subjective well-being (SWB) by creating an evolutionary mismatch between evolved psychological tendencies and the current social environment, human societies can adapt to diversity via intergroup contact under appropriate conditions. Exploiting a novel natural experiment in history, we examine the impact of the social environment, captured by population diversity, on SWB. We find that diversity lowers cognitive and hedonic measures of SWB. Diversity-induced deteriorations in the quality of the macrosocial environment, captured by reduced social cohesion, retarded state capacity, and increased inequality in economic opportunities, emerge as mechanisms explaining our findings. The analysis of first- and second-generation immigrants in Europe and the USA reveals that the misery of home country diversity persists even after neutralizing the role of the social environment. However, these effects diminish among the second generation, suggesting that long-term improvements in the social environment can alleviate the burden of diversity.

Somewhere on this site I discuss a paper about a corporation that had 4-6 person offices all over the world; the researchers found that people were happier and more productive when the office was all male or all female. All the studies I have ever seen find that most people are happiest around others like themselves and want to live that way most of the time.

Not that this is the whole story; after all, if immigrants had been happy in their home countries they presumably would never have left. Village life has its own miseries, and people have been leaving their birth villages for the big city for about 5,000 years now. As I have said many times, I personally prefer mixed-sex gatherings to all male ones, although I am finding that men over 50 are less obnoxious in groups than they were when we were younger.

But, anyway, when you are pondering why our vast wealth and long lives have not made us happy, you have to consider the price we pay for having to live and work with people who feel to us like strangers.

(That can apply to distinctions other than ethnicity and sex; I mean, think about how miserable every presidential election makes tens of millions of Americans on the losing side.)

There are also very basic problems with extending the village mentality to a nation. While it might be possible for a country like Norway to maintain ethnic unity, the US has been multi-ethnic and multi-cultural from its beginnings. It was probably Indians in the southeast who first divided North Americans into Red, Black and White, in the early 1700s, and we have been diverse ever since. Attempts to achieve ethnic purity in the US therefore all amount to Apartheid. While I'm on the subject, ethnic unity in many European states was achieved by some combination of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forced assimilation. Our desire to live among others like us, while understandable and extremely ancient, always has a dark side that we need to monitor.

When one group has most of the money and power, their desire to hang out with each other can also amount to a severe barrier for others; it was for this reason that the men's clubs that used to be so important in the US (Elks, Kiwanis, etc.) were forced to admit women. (Is that part of why they have declined?)

When I write about immigration to the US, I always acknowledge that there are costs. It is simply true that having to deal with people who feel alien "lowers cognitive and hedonic measures of SWB." Many European ethno-nationalists also write about the bad effects this has on immigrants, torn away from what these writers see as their native homes and cultures, and this paper seems to support the notion that immigrants suffer from their status.

But I think the benefits are worth it. I think the US is more vibrant, more productive, and more interesting with millions of immigrants than it would be without them. Immigration also makes the cost of our aging population more sustainable; take away the contributions of recent immigrants and Social Security would already be bankrupt. I also think that in the US it would have always been hard for blacks to achieve equality in a country that was 85% white than it will be in a more diverse situation.

And I think we are much better off with women in public life, doubling our reservoir of talent and energy.

Sometimes when I read liberals going on about the wonders of diversity is I cringe and think about the huge literature showing that diversity makes many of us unhappy. But when I consider that we are stuck with diversity, I think that maybe celebrating what we have is the way to go.