The Effects of Covid-19 on French Asians' Self-Reported Experiences of Racism and Discrimination: A Natural Experiment

Cao Minh Ho, Sciences Po (Paris)

The Covid-19 crisis has triggered a wave of racism towards Asian people. Has this rise of racism affected Asian people's self-reported experiences of racism and discrimination, in comparison with other minority groups? I use the French data of « Trajectoires et Origines 2 », a large-scale representative survey conducted before and after the first French lockdown to examine this issue. By using a difference-in-differences design, this research focuses on the evolution of self-reported experiences of racism and discrimination among descendants of Asian immigrants, before and after the first lockdown in France. Preliminary results show that people of Asian descent self-reported experiences of racism differently from discrimination: although the perception racism increased significantly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, self-reported experiences of discrimination remained stable during the whole survey. Even though the scientific literature often documents the relation between racism and discrimination, the example of Asians' experiences in France during this context appears as an exception. This presentation also aims to describe and understand these contrasting patterns, especially by investigating socioeconomic specificities of Asian people in France. Intersectional analyses of interaction before and after the lockdown also show that experiences of racism were concentrated within a group: lower-class Asian men.

Keywords: Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Migrant Populations and Refugees, Data and Methods, Population, Shocks and Pandemics

See extended abstract.