Social Frontiers in Residential Segregation: A Data Analytics Approach

There has been growing interest across the western world regarding the impact of migration and the implications for social cohesion in our societies and cities. A key aspect of the debate is the impact of migration on segregation -- the extent to which people from different ethnicities tend to concentrate in particular neighbourhoods. This PhD offers a superb opportunity to work with a world-leading team of researchers from the UK and the Netherlands to produce cutting-edge research on the causes and impacts of "social frontiers", an exciting new area of segregation research. Social Frontiers arise when there are sharp spatial divisions in the residential make-up of adjacent communities (e.g. Catholics and Protestants in Belfast) as opposed to more gradual spatial blending of groups. There is growing evidence that this type of segregation could have important implications, both positive and negative, for crime, mental health and educational outcomes. This studentship will give you a unique opportunity to investigate the impacts and formation of social frontiers using one of the world's very best micro-level social science datasets.