A Social Proximity Explanation of the Reluctance to Assimilate
提出移民不愿同化并非因留恋故友，而是害怕与本地人缩小距离后加剧相对剥夺感；收入差距越大，同化努力越弱，甚至影响移民目的地选择。
SUMMARY The pursuit of migration is an extreme example of the severing of ties with, or a distancing from, one's friends and home. The ‘failure’ of migrants to assimilate cannot plausibly be attributed merely to an urge to stay close to their friends, or they might not have migrated to begin with. Non‐assimilation arises from a fear of enhanced relative deprivation if they reduce their distance from the natives as a reference group. Fundamentally, migration is a change of those with whom people associate. But it would be wrong to infer that a change of associates crowds out a change of behavior, given the associates. Through their actions, migrants can elect to associate more with some groups, less with others. However, when actions to keep in check the weight accorded to the rich natives as a reference group are not viable, the very choice of migration destination could be affected in an unexpected way: a country that is not so rich could be preferable to a country that is rich; migrants will protect themselves from an unfavorable comparison by not migrating to where the comparison, when unavoidable, would be highly unfavorable. Relatedly, the variance in the assimilation effort of migrants across host countries could arise from the variance in the income distance with the natives: the richer the natives, the weaker the effort to assimilate, other things held the same.