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Coethnic Concentration and Asians’ Perceived Discrimination across U.S. Counties during COVID-19 Lee, Rennie; Qian, Yue; Wu, Cary

Abstract

Aggregate figures unequivocally depict an increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and other Western countries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is limited understanding of the contexts under which Asians encounter discrimination. The authors examine how coethnic concentration shapes Asians’ experiences of discrimination across U.S. counties during COVID-19 and also assess whether county-level context (e.g., COVID-19 infection rates, unemployment rates) could help explain this relationship. The authors analyze the Understanding Coronavirus in America tracking survey, a nationally representative panel of American households, along with countylevel contextual data. The authors find an n-shaped relationship between coethnic concentration and Asians’ perceived discrimination. This relationship is explained largely by county-level COVID-19 infection rates. Together, the context of medium Asian concentration and high COVID-19 cases created a particularly hostile environment for Asians during COVID-19.

Item Metadata

Title
Coethnic Concentration and Asians’ Perceived Discrimination across U.S. Counties during COVID-19
Creator
Lee, Rennie; Qian, Yue; Wu, Cary
Date Issued
2022
Description
Aggregate figures unequivocally depict an increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States and other Western countries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is limited understanding of the contexts under which Asians encounter discrimination. The authors examine how coethnic concentration shapes Asians’ experiences of discrimination across U.S. counties during COVID-19 and also assess whether county-level context (e.g., COVID-19 infection rates, unemployment rates) could help explain this relationship. The authors analyze the Understanding Coronavirus in America tracking survey, a nationally representative panel of American households, along with countylevel contextual data. The authors find an n-shaped relationship between coethnic concentration and Asians’ perceived discrimination. This relationship is explained largely by county-level COVID-19 infection rates. Together, the context of medium Asian concentration and high COVID-19 cases created a particularly hostile environment for Asians during COVID-19.
Subject
Discrimination; Anti-Asian sentiment; COVID-19; Asian Americans; Coethnic concentration
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2023-04-11
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0430336
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/84159
Affiliation
Arts, Faculty of; Non UBC; Sociology, Department of
Citation
Lee, R., Qian, Y., & Wu, C. (2022). Coethnic Concentration and Asians’ Perceived Discrimination across U.S. Counties during COVID-19. Socius, 8.
Publisher DOI
10.1177/23780231221124580
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository
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Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International