The Effects of Covid-19 on Self-Reported Experiences in Racism and Discrimination among Asians in France

Cao Minh Ho , Ined

The Covid-19 crisis has triggered a wave of racism towards Asian people in Western countries, including France. 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 (from July of 2019 to December of 2020) to examine this issue. By using descriptive analyses, difference-in-differences methods and an intersectional analysis of interactions, 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 (in March 2020). Preliminary results show that people of Asian descent self-reported experiences of racism differently from discrimination: although the perception of being victim of 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, compared to other minority groups. Intersectional analyses of interaction before and after the lockdown also show that experiences of racism were counter-intuitively concentrated within a group: lower-class Asian men.

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 Presented in Session 14. Flash session Migrant Populations